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CAPTAIN 

BRASSBOUND'S 

CONVERSION 

A PLAY OF ADVENTURE 

By 
BERNARD SHAW 




NEW YORK 

BRENTANO'S 

1913 



f^ 5343 



Copyright, 1900, by Herbert S. Stone & Co. 



Copyright, 1906,' by Brentano's 






CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S 
CONVERSION 

IX 

HtNDBEAD, 1899 



CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S 
CONVERSION 

ACT I 

On the heights overlooking the harbor of Mogador, a sea- 
port on the west coast of Morocco, the missionary, in the coolness 
of the late aflernoon, is following the precept of Voltaire by culti- 
vating his garden. He is an elderly Scotchman, spiritually u 
little weatherbeafen, as having to navigate his creed in strange 
waters croicded with other craft, but still a convinced son of 
the Free Church and the North African Mission, with a faith- 
ful brown eye, and a peaceful soul. Physically a wiry small- 
knit man, well tanned, clean shaven, with delicate resolute 
features and a twinkle of mild humor. He ivears tKe sun hel- 
met and pagriy the neutral-tinted spectacles, and the white 
canvas Spanish sand shoes of the modern Scotch missionary; 
hut instead of a cheap tourist's suit from Glasgow, a grey flannel 
shirt with ichite collar, a green sailor knot tie with a cheap pin 
in it, he wears a suit of clean white linen, acceptable in color, 
if not in cut, to the Moorish mind. 

The view from the garden includes much Atlantic Ocean and 
a long stretch of sandy coast to the south, swept by the north 
east trade wind, and scantily nourishing a few stunted pepper 
trees, mangy palms, and tamarisks. The prospect ends, as 
far as the land is concerned, in little hills that come nearly to 
the sea: rudiments, these, of the Atlas Mountains. The mis- 
sionary, having had daily opportunities of looking at this 
seascape for thirty years or so, pays no heed to it, being ab- 
sorbed in trimming a huge red geranium bush, to English 
eyes unnaturally big, which, with a dusty smilax or two, is 
the sole product of his pet flower-bed. He is sitting to his work 



6 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

<m a Moorish stool. In the middle of the garden there is a 
pleasant seat in the shade of a tamarisk tree. The house is in 
the south west corner of the garden, and the geranium bu^h 
in the north east corner. 

At the garden-door of the house there appears presently a 
man who is clearly no barbarian, being in fad a less agree- 
able product peculiar to modern commercial civilization. His 
frame and flesh are those of an ill-nourished lad of seventeen; 
but his age is inscrutable: only the absence of any sign of grey 
in his mud colored hair suggests that he is at all events prob- 
ably under forty, without prejudice to the possibility of his 
being under twenty. A Londoner would recognize him at 
once as an extreme but hardy specimen of the abortion produced 
by nature in a city slum. His utterance, affectedly pumped 
and hearty, and naturally vulgar and nasal, is ready and 
fluent: nature, a Board School education, and some kerbstone 
practice having made him a bit of an orator. His dialect, 
apart from its base nasal delivery, is not unlike that of smart 
London society in its tendency to replace diphthongs by vowels 
{sometimes rather prettily) and to shuffle all the traditional 
vowel pronunciations. He pronounces oiv as ah, and i as 
aw, using the ordinary ow for o, i for d, a for u, and e for a, 
with this reservation, that when any vowel is followed by an 
r, he signifies its presence, not by pronouncing the r, which 
he never does under these circumstances, but by prolonging 
and modifying the vowel, sometimes even to the extreme de- 
gree of pronouncing it properly. As to his yol for I (a com- 
pendious delivery of the provincial eh-al), and other metropoli- 
tan refinements, amazing to all but cockneys, they cannot be 
indicated, save in the above imperfect manner, without the aid 
of a phonetic alphabet. He is dressed in somebody else's very 
second best as a coast-guardsman, and gives himself the airs of 
a stage tar with sufficient success to pass as a possible fish 
porter of bad character in casual employment during busy 
times at Billingsgate. His manner sheivs an earnest dis- 
position to ingratiate himself with the missionary, probably 
for some dishonest purpose. 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 7 

The Man. Awtenoon, Mr. Renkin. {The missionary 
sits up quickly, and turns , resigning himself dutifully to the 
interruption.) Yr honor's eolth. 

Rankin (reservedly). Good afternoon, Mr. Drinkwotter. 

Drinkwater. You're not best pleased to be hinterrapted 
in yr bit o gawdnin baw the lawk o me, gavner. 

Rankin. A missionary knows nothing of leks of that soart, 
or of disleks either, Mr. Drinkwotter. What can I do for ye ? 

Drinkwater (heartily). Nathink, gavner. Awve brort 
noos fer yer. 

Rankin. Well, sit ye doon. 

Drinkwater. Aw thenk yr honor. (He sits down on the 
seat under the tree and composes himself for conversation.) 
Hever ear o Jadge Ellam? 

Rankin. Sir Howrrd Hallam? 

Drinkwater. Thet's im — enginest jadge in Hingland! 
— awlus gives the ket wen it's robbry with voylence, bless 
is awt. Aw sy nathink agin im: awm all fer lor mawseolf, 
a w em. 

Rankin. Well ? 

Drinkwater. Hever ear of is sist-in-lor: Lidy Sisly 
Winefleet? 

Rankin. Do ye mean the celebrated leddy — the traveller? 

Drinkwater. Yuss: should think aw doo. W^alked 
acrost Harfricar with nathink but a little dawg, and wrow^t 
abaht it in the Dily Mile (the Daily Mail, a popular London 
newspaper), she did. 

Rankin. Is she Sir Howrrd Hallam 's sister-in-law? 

Drinkwater. Deeceased wawfe's sister: yuss: thet's wot 
she is. 

Rankin. Well, what about them? 

Drinkwater. Wot abaht them! Waw, they're eah. 
Lannid aht of a steam yacht in Mogador awber not twenty 
minnits agow. Gorn to the British cornsl's. E'U send em 
orn to you: e ynt got naowheres to put em, Sor em awr 
(hire) a Harab an two Krooboys to kerry their laggige. 
Thort awd cam an teoU yer. 



8 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Rankin. Thank you. It*s vena kind of you, Mr. Drink- 
wotter. 

Drinkwater. Down*t mention it, gavner. Lor bless yer, 
wawn't it you as converted me? Wot was aw wen aw cam 
eah but a pore lorst sinner? Down't aw ow y'a turn fer thet? 
Besawds, gavner, this Lidy Sisly Winefleet mawt wornt to 
tike a walk crost Morocker — a rawd inter the mahntns or 
sech lawk. Weoll, as you knaow, gavner, thet cawn't be 
done eah withaht a hescort. 

Rankin. It's impoassible: th* would oall b' murrdered. 
Morocco is not lek the rest of Africa. 

Drinkwater. No, gavner: these eah Moors ez their 
religion; an it mikes em dinegerous. Hever convert a Moor, 
gavner ? 

Rankin {with a rueful smile). No. 

Drinkwater (solemnly). Nor hever will, gavner. 

Rankin. I have been at work here for twenty-five years, 
Mr. Drink wotter; and you are my first and only convert. 

Drinkwater. Down't seem naow good, do it, gavner? 

Rankin. I don't say that. I hope I have done some 
good. They come to me for medicine when they are ill; and 
they call me the Christian who is not a thief. That is 
something. 

Drinkwater. Their mawnds kennot rawse to Christi- 
ennity lawk hahrs ken, gavner: thet's ah it is. Weoll, ez 
haw was syin, if a hescort is worn ted, there's maw friend 
and commawnder Kepn Brarsbahnd of the schooner Thenks- 
givin, an is crew, incloodin mawseolf, will see the lidy an 
Jadge Ellam through henny little excursion in reason. Yr 
honor mawt mention it. 

Rankin. I will certainly not propose anything so dan- 
gerous as an excursion. 

Drinkwater {virtuoiLsly) . Naow, gavner, nor would T 
awst you to. (Shaking his head.) Naow, naow : it i s dine- 
gerous. But hall the more call for a hescort if they should 
ev it hin their mawnds to gow. 

Rankin. I hope they won't. 



Act I Captain Brassboimd's Conversion 9 

DrIxVKWater. An sow aw do too, gavner. 

Rankin (pondering). 'Tis strange that they should come 
to Mogador, of all places; and to my house! I once met Sir 
Howrrd Hallam, years ago. 

Drinkwater (amazed). Naow! didger? Think o thet, 
gavner! Waw, sow aw did too. But it were a misunner- 
stendin, thet wors. Lef the court withaht a stine on maw 
kerrickter, aw did. 

Rankin (ivith some indignation). I hope you don't think 
I met Sir Howrrd in that way. 

Drinkwater. Mawt yeppn to the honestest, best meanin 
pusson, aw do assure yer, gavner. 

Rankin. I would have you to know that I met him pri- 
vately, Mr. Drinlvwotter. His brother was a dear friend of 
mine. Years ago. He went out to the West Indies. 

Drinkwater. The Wust Hindies! Jist acrost there, 
tather sawd thet howcean (pointing seaioard)\ Dear me! 
We cams hin with vennity, an we deepawts in dawkness. 
Down't we, gavner.'* 

Rankin (pricking up his ears). Eh? Have you been 
reading that little book I gave you .? 

Drinkwater. Aw hev, et odd tawms. Very camfitn, 
gavner. (He rises, apprehensive lest further catechism should 
pud him unprepared.) Awll sy good awtenoon, gavner: 
you're busy hexpectin o Sr Ahrd an Lidy Sisly, ynt yer? 
(About to go.) 

Rankin (stopping him). No, stop: we're oalways ready 
for travellers here. I have something else to say — a question 
to ask you. 

Drinkwater (with a misgiving, which he masks by exag- 
gerating his hearty sailor manner). An weollcome, yr honor. 

Rankin. TVTio is this Captain Brassbound? 

Drinkwater (guiltily). Kepn Brarsbahnd! E's — weoll, 
e's maw Kepn, gavner. 

Rankin. Yes. Well? 

Drinkwater (feebly). Kepn of the schooner Thenks- 
givin, gavner. 



10 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Rankin (searchingly) . Have ye ever haird of a bad 
character in these seas called Black Paquito? 

Drinkwater {with a sudden radiance of complete enlight- 
enment). Aoh, nar aw tikes yer wiv me, yr honor. Nah 
sammun es bin a teolln you thet Kepn Brarsbahnd an Bleck 
Pakeetow is haw-dentically the sime pussn. Ynt thet sow? 

Rankin. That is so. (Drinkwater slaps his knee trium- 
phantly. The missionary proceeds determinedly) And the 
someone was a verra honest, straightforward man, as far as 
I could judge. 

Drinkwater (embracing the implication). Course e wors, 
gavner : Ev aw said a word agin him ? Ev aw nah ? 

Rankin. But is Captain Brassbound Black Paquito 
then? 

Drinkwater. Waw, it's the nime is blessed mather give 
im at er knee, bless is little awt! Ther ynt naow awm in it. 
She were a Wust Hinjin — howver there agin, yer see (point- 
ing seaward) — leastwaws, naow she worn't: she were a 
Brazilian, aw think; an Pakeetow 's Brazilian for a bloomin 
little perrit — -awskin yr pawdn for the word. (Sentimentally) 
Lawk as a Hinglish lidy mawt call er little boy Birdie. 

Rankin (nof quite cojivinced). But why Black Paquito? 

Drinkwater (artlessly). Waw, the bird in its netral stite 
bein green, an e evin bleck air, y' knaow 

'Rankin (cutting him short) . I see. And now I will put ye 
another question. What is Captain Brassbound, or Pa- 
quito, or whatever he calls himself? 

Drinkwater (officiously). Brarsbahnd, gavner. Awlus 
calls isseolf Brarsbahnd. 

Rankin. Well, Brassbound, then. What is he? 

Drinkwater (fervently). You awsks me wot e is, gavner? 

Rankin (firmly). I do. 

Drinkwater (with rising enthusiasm). An shll aw teoll 
yer wot e is, yr honor? 

Rankin (not at all impressed). If ye will be so good, Mr. 
Drinkwotter. 

Drinkwater (with overwhelming conviction). Then awll 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 11 

teoll you, gavner, wot he is. Ee's a Paffick Genlmn: thet's 
wot e is. 

Rankin {gravely). Mr. Drinkwotter: pairfection is an 
attribute, not of West Coast captains, but of thr Maaker. 
And there are gentlemen and gentlemen in the worid, espae- 
cially in these latitudes. Which sort of gentleman is he? 

Drinkwater. Hinglish genlmn, gavner. Hinglish speakin; 
Hinglish faw^ther; West Hinjin plawnter; Hinglish true blue 
breed. (Reflectively) Tech o brahn from the mather, preps, 
she bein Brazilian. 

Rankin. Now on your faith as a Christian, Felix Drink- 
wotter, is Captain Brassbound a slaver or not? 

Drinkwater (surprised into his natural cockney pertness). 
Naow e ynt. 

Rankin. Are ye s u r e ? 

Drinkwater. W^aw, a sliver is abaht the wanne thing in 
the wy of a genlmn o fortn thet e y n t. 

Rankin. I've haird that expression "gentleman of for- 
tune" before, Mr. Drinkwotter. It means pirate. Do ye 
know that? 

Drinkwater. Bless y*r awt, y' cawnt be a pawrit naradys. 
W^aw, the aw seas is wuss pleest nor Piccadilly Suckus. If 
aw was to do orn thet there Hetlentic Howcean the things 
aw did as a bwoy in the W^orterleoo Rowd, awd ev maw air 
cat afore aw could turn maw ed. Pawrit be blaowed! — 
awskink yr pawdn, gavner. Nah, jest to shaow you ah little 
thet there striteforard man y' mide mention on knaowed 
wot e was atorkin abaht : oo would you spowse was the mars- 
ter to wich Kepn Brarsbahnd served apprentice, as yr 
mawt sy? 

Rai>jkin. I don't know. 

Drinkwater. Gawdn, gavner, Gawdn. Gawdn o Kaw- 
toom — stetcher stends ii- Trifawlgr Square to this dy. Trined 
Bleck Pakeetow in smawshin hap the slive riders, e did. 
Promist Gawdn e wouldn't never smaggle slives nor gin, an 
(with suppressed aggravation) w o w n ' t, gavner, not if we 
gows dahn on ahr bloomin bended knees to im to do it. 



12 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Rankin {drily). And do ye go down on your bended 
knees to him to do it? 

Drinkwater {someiohat abashed). Some of huz is hancon- 
verted men, gavner; an they sy: You smaggles wanne thing, 
Kepn; waw not hanather? 

Rankin. We've come to it at last. I thought so. Captain 
Brassbound is a smuggler. 

Drinkwater. Weoll, waw not .? Waw not, gavner ? Ahrs 
is a Free Tride nition. It gows agin us as Hinglishmen to 
see these bloomin furriners settin ap their Castoms Ahses 
and spheres o hinfluence and sich lawk hall owver Arfricar. 
Daown't Harfricar belong as much to huz as to them.^ thet's 
wot we sy. Ennywys, there ynt naow awm in ahr business. 
All we daz is hescort, tourist h o r commercial. Cook's 
hexcursions to the Hatlas Mahntns: thet's hall it is. Waw, 
it's spreadin civlawzytion, it is. Ynt it nah? 

Rankin. You think Captain Brassbound's crew suffi- 
ciently equipped for that, do you? 

Drinkwater. Hee-quipped! Haw should think sow. 
Lawtnin rawfles, twelve shots in the meggezine! Oo's to 
storp us? 

Rankin. The most dangerous chieftain in these parts, 
the Sheikh Sidi el Assif, has a new American machine pistol 
which fires ten bullets without loadin; and his rifle has six- 
teen shots in the magazine. 

Drinkwater {indignantly). Yuss; an the people that sells 
sich things into the ends o' them eathen bleck niggers calls 
theirseolves Christians! It's a crool shime, sow it is. 

Rankin. If a man has the heart to pull the trigger, it 
matters little what color his hand is, Mr. Drinkwotter. Have 
ye anything else to say to me this afternoon? 

Drinkwater {rising). Nathink, gavner, cept to wishyer 
the bust o yolth, and a many cornverts. Awtenoon, gavner. 

Rankin, Good afternoon to ye, Mr. Drinkwotter. 

As Drinkwater turns to go, a Moorish porter comes from 
the house with two Kroohoys. 

The Porter {at the door, addressing Rankin). Bikouros 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 13 

(Moroccan for Epicurus, a general Moorish name for the mis- 
sionaries, who are supposed by the Moors to have chosen their 
calling through a love of luxurious idleness) : I have brought 
to your house a Christian dog and his woman. 

Drinkwater. There's eathen menners fer yer! Calls Sr 
Ahrd EUam an Lidy Winefleet a Christian dorg and is woman! 
If ee ed you in the dorck et the Centl Crimnal, you'd fawnd 
aht oo was the dorg and oo was is marster, pretty quick, you 
would. 

Rankin. Have you broat their boxes? 

The Porter. By Allah, two camel loads! 

Rankin. Have you been paid.'' 

The Porter. Only one miserable dollar, Bikouros. I 
have brought them to your house. They w411 pay you. Give 
me something for bringing gold to your door. 

Drinkwater. Yah! You oughter bin bawn a Christian, 
you ought. You knaow too mach. 

Rankin. You have broat onnly trouble and expense to my 
door, Hassan; and you know it. Have I ever charged your 
wife and children for my medicines ? 

Hassan (philosophically). It is always permitted by the 
Prophet to ask, Bikouros. (He goes cheerfully into the Jwu^e 
with the Krooboys.) 

Drinkwater. Jist thort eed trah it orn, e did. Hooman 
nitre is the sime everywheres. Them eathens is jast lawk you 
an' me, gavner. 

A lady and gentleman, both English, come into the garden. 
The gentleman, more than elderly, is facing old age on compul- 
sion, not resignedly. He is clean shaven, and has a brainy 
rectangular forehead, a resolute nose with strongly governed 
nostrils, and a tightly fastened down mouth which has evidently 
shut in much temper and anger in its time. He has a habit 
of deliberately assumed authority and dignity, but is trying to 
take life more genially and easily in his character of tourist, 
which is further borne out by his white hat and summery 
racecourse attire. 

The lady is between thirty and forty, tall, very goodlooking. 



14 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

sympathetic, intelligent^ tender and humorous, dressed with 
cunning simplicity not as a businesslike, tailor made, gaitered 
tourist, but as if she lived at the next cottage and had dropped 
in for tea in blouse and flowered straw hat. A woman of great 
vitality and humanity, who begins a casual acquaintance at the 
point usually attained by English people after thirty years ac- 
quaintance when they are capable of reaching it at all. She 
pounces genially on Drinkwater, who is smirking at her, hat 
in hand, with an air of hearty welcome. The gentleman, on 
the other hand, comes doivn the side of the garden next the 
house, instinctively maintaining a distance between himself 
and the others. 

The Lady (to Drinkwater). How dye do? Are you the 
missionary ? 

Drinkwater (modestly). Naow, lidy, aw will not deceive 
you, thow the mistike his but netral. Awm wanne of the 
missionary's good works, lidy — is first corn vert, a umble British 
seaman — countrymen o yours, lidy, and of is lawdship's. 
This eah is Mr. Renkin, the bust worker in the wust cowst 
vawnyawd. (Introducing the ju^ge) Mr. Renkin: is lawd- 
ship Sr Ahrd EUam. (He withdraws discreetly into the 
house.) 

Sir Howard (to Rankin). I am sorry to intrude on you, 
Mr. Rankin; but in the absence of a hotel there seems to be 
no alternative. 

Lady Cicely (beaming on him). Besides, we would so 
much rather stay with you, if you will have us, Mr. Rankin. 

Sir Howard (introducing her). My sister-in-law, Lady 
Cicely Waynflete, Mr. Rankin. 

Rankin. I am glad to be of service to your leddyship. 
You will be wishing to have some tea after your journey, 
I'm thinking. 

Lady Cicely. Thoughtful man that you are, Mr. Rankin! 
But we've had some already on board the yacht. And I've 
arranged everything with your servants; so you must go on 
gardening just as if we were not here. 

Sir Howard. I am sorry to have to warn you, Mr. Raiikin, 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 15 

that Lady Cicely, from travelling in Africa, has acquired a 
habit of walking into people's houses and behaving as if she 
were in her own. 

Lady Cicely. But, my dear Howard, I assure you the 
natives like it. 

Rankin {gallantlij). So do I. 

Lady Cicely {delighted). Oh, that is so nice of you, Mr. 
Rankin. This is a delicious country! And the people seem 
so good ! They have such nice faces ! We had such a hand- 
some Moor to carry our luggage up! And two perfect pets 
of Krooboys! Did you notice their faces, Howard? 

Sir Howard. I did; and I can confidently say, after a 
long experience of faces of the worst type looking at me from 
the dock, that I have never seen so entirely villainous a trio 
as that Moor and the two Krooboys, to whom you gave five 
dollars when they would have been perfectly satisfied with one. 

Rankin {throwing up his hands). Five dollars! 'Tis easy 
to see you are not Scotch, my leddy. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, poor things, they must want it more 
than we do; and you know, Howard, that Mahometans 
never spend money in drink. 

Rankin. Excuse me a moment, my leddy. I have a word 
in season to say to that same Moor. (He goes into the house.) 

Lady Cicely (walking about the garden, looking at the 
view and at the flowers). I think this is a perfectly heavenly 
place. 

Drinkivater returns from the house with a chair. 

Drinkwater ('placing the chair for Sir Howard) . Awskink 
yr pawdn for the libbety, Sr Ahrd. 

Sir Howard (looking at him). I have seen you before 
somewhere. 

Drinkwater. You ev, Sr Ahrd. But aw do assure yer 
it were hall a mistike. 

Sir Howard. As usual. (He sits down.) Wrcngfully 
convicted, of course. 

Drinkwater (with sly delight). Naow, gavner. (Half 
whispering, with an ineffable grin) Wrorngfully hacquittid! 



16 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Sir Howard. Indeed! That's the first case of the kind I 
have ever met. 

Drinkwater. Lawd, Sr Ahrd, wot jagginses them jury- 
men was! You an me knaowed it too, didn't we? 

Sir Howard. I daresay we did. I am sorry to say I 
forget the exact nature of the difficulty you were in. Can 
you refresh my memory^ .'* 

Drinkwater. Owny the aw sperrits o youth, y' lawd- 
ship. Worterleoo Rowd kice. Wot they calls Ooliganism. 

Sir Howard. Oh! You were a Hooligan, were you? 

Lady Cicely (puzzled). A Hooligan! 

Drinkwater (deprecatingly) . Nime giv huz pore thortless 
leds baw a gent on the Dily Chrornicle, lidy. (Rankin 
returns. Drinkwater immediately withdraws, slopping the 
missionary for a moment near the threshold to say, touching 
his forelock) Awll eng abaht within ile, gavner, hin kice aw 
should be wornted. (He goes into the hov^e with soft steps.) 

Lady Cicely sits doivn on the bench under the tamarisk. 
Rankin takes his stool from the flowerbed and sits down on her 
left. Sir Howard being on her right. 

Lady Cicely. What a pleasant face your sailor friend 
has, Mr. Rankin! He has been so frank and truthful with 
us. You know I don't think anybody can pay me a greater 
compliment than to be quite sincere with me at first sight. 
It's the perfection of natural good manners. 

Sir Howard. You must not suppose, Mr. Rankin, that 
my sister-in-law talks nonsense on purpose. She will con- 
tinue to believe in your friend until he steals her watch; and 
even then she will find excuses for him. 

Rankin (drily changing the subject). And how have ye 
been, Sir Howrrd, since our last meeting that morning nigh 
forty year ago down at the docks in London ? 

Sir Howard (greatly surprised, pulling himself together). 
Our last meeting! Mr. Rankin: have I been unfortunate 
enough to forget an old acquaintance? 

Rankin. Well, perhaps hardly an acquaintance. Sir 
Howrrd. But I was a close friend of your brother Miles; 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 17 

and when he sailed for Brazil I was one of the little party 
that saw him off. You were one of the party also, if I'm 
not mistaken. I took particular notice of you because you 
were Miles 's brother and I had never seen ye before. But 
ye had no call to take notice of me. 

Sir Howard {reflecting). Yes: there was a young friend 
of my brother's who might well be you. But the name, as I 
recollect it, was Leshe. 

Rankin. That was me, sir. My name is Leslie Rankin; 
and your brother and I were always Miles and Leslie to one 
another. 

Sir Howard (pluming himself a little). Ah! that explains 
it. I can trust my memory still, Mr. Rankin; though some 
people do complain that I am growing old. 

Rankin. And where may Miles be now. Sir Howard.'' 

Sir Howard (abruptly). Don't you know that he is dead? 

Rankin (much shocked). Never haird of it. Dear, dear: I 
shall never see him again; and I can scarcely bring his face 
to mind after all these years. (With moistening eyes, which 
at once touch Lady Cicely's sympathy) I'm right sorry — 
right sorry. 

Sir Howard (decorously subduing his voice). Yes: he did 
not live long: indeed, he never came back to England. It 
must be nearly thirty years ago now that he died in the West 
Indies on his property there. 

Rankin (surprised). His proaperty! Miles with a proap- 
erty! 

Sir Howard. Yes: he became a planter, and did well out 
there, Mr. Rankin. The history of that property is a very 
curious and interesting one — at least it is so to a lawyer like 
myself. 

Rankin. I should be glad to hear it for Miles *s sake, 
though I am no lawyer. Sir Howrrd. 

Lady Cicely. I never knew you had a brother, Howard. 

Sir Howard (not pleased by this remark). Perhaps be- 
cause you never asked me. ( Turning more blandly to Rankin) 
I will tell you the story, Mr. Rankin. When Miles died, he 



18 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

left an estate in one of the West Indian islands. It was in 
charge of an agent who was a sharpish fellow, with all his 
wits about him. Now, sir, that man did a thing which prob- 
ably could hardly be done with impunity even here in Morocco, 
under the most barbarous of surviving civilizations. He 
quite simply took the estate for himself and kept it. 

Rankin. But how about the law? 

Sir Howard. The law, sir, in that island, consisted 
practically of the Attorney General and the Solicitor General; 
and these gentlemen were both retained by the agent. Con- 
sequently there was no solicitor in the island to take up the 
case against him. 

Rankin. Is such a thing possible to-day in the British 
Empire "? 

Sir Howard {calmly). Oh, quite. Quite. 

Lady Cicely. But could not a firstrate solicitor have been 
sent out from London? 

Sir Howard. No doubt, by paying him enough to com- 
pensate him for giving up his London practice: that is, rather 
more than there was any reasonable likelihood of the estate 
proving worth. 

Rankin. Then the estate was lost? 

Sir Howard. Not permanently. It is in my hands at 
present. 

Rankin. Then how did ye get it back ? 

Sir Howard {with crafty enjoyment of his own cunning). 
By hoisting the rogue with his own petard. I had to leave 
matters as they were for many years; for I had my own posi- 
tion in the world to make. But at last I made it. In the 
course of a holiday trip to the West Indies, I found that this 
dishonest agent had left the island, and placed the estate in the 
hands of an agent of his own, whom he was foolish enough to 
pay very badly. I put the case before that agent; and he 
decided to treat the estate as my property. The robber now 
found himself in exactly the same position he had formerly 
forced me into. Nobody in the island would act against me, 
least of all the Attorney and Solicitor General, who appre- 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 19 

elated my influence at the Colonial OflBce. And so I got the 
estate back. "The mills of the gods grind slowly," Mr. 
Rankin; "but they grind exceeding small." 

Lady Cicely. Now I suppose if I'd done such a clever 
thing in England, you'd have sent me to prison. 

Sir Howard. Probably, unless you had taken care to 
keep outside the law against conspiracy. Whenever you 
wish to do anything against the law. Cicely, always consult 
a good solicitor first. 

Lady Cicely. So I do. But suppose your agent takes it 
into his head to give the estate back to his wicked old em- 
ployer! 

Sir Howard. I heartily wish he would. 

Rankin (openeyed). You wish he w o u I d ! ! 

Sir Howard. Yes. A few years ago the collapse of the 
West Indian sugar industry converted the income of the 
estate into an annual loss of about ;^150 a year. If I can't 
sell it soon, I shall simply abandon it — unless you, Mr. Rankin, 
would like to take it as a present. 

Rankin (laughing) . I thank your lordship : we have estates 
enough of that sort in Scotland. You're setting with your 
back to the sun, licddy Ceecily, and losing something worth 
looking at. See there. (He rises and points seaward, where 
the rapid twilight of the latitude has begun.) 

Lady Cicely (getting up to look and uttering a cry of 
admiration). Oh, how lovely! 

Sir Howard (also rising). What are those hills over there 
to the southeast .? 

Rankin. They are the outposts, so to speak, of the Atlas 
Mountains. 

Lady Cicely. The Atlas Mountains! Where Shelley's 
witch lived! We'll make an excursion to them to-morrow, 
Howard. 

Rankin. That's impoassible, my leddy. The natives are 
verra dangerous. 

Lady Cicely. Why? Has any explorer been shooting 
them? 



20 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Rankin. No. But every man of them believes he will 
go to heaven if he kills an unbeliever. 

Lady Cicely. Bless you, dear Mr. Rankin, the people 
in England believe that they will go to heaven if they give all 
their property to the poor. But they don't do it. I'm not a 
bit afraid of that. 

Rankin. But they are not accustomed to see women going 
about unveiled. 

Lady Cicely. I always get on best with people when they 
can see my face. 

Sir Howard. Cicely: you are talking great nonsense; 
and you know it. These people have no laws to restrain 
them, which means, in plain English, that they are habitual 
thieves and murderers. 

Rankin. Nay, nay: not exactly that, Sir Howrrd. 

Lady Cicely (indignantly). Of course not. You always 
think, Howard, that nothing prevents people killing each 
other but the fear of your hanging them for it. But what 
nonsense that is? And how wicked! If these people weren't 
here for some good purpose, they wouldn't have been made, 
would they, Mr. Rankin.? 

Rankin. That is a point, certainly, Leddy Ceecily. 

Sir Howard. Oh, if you are going to talk theology 

Lady Cicely. Well, why not? theology is as respectable 
as law, I should think. Besides, I'm only talking common- 
sense. Why do people get killed by savages? Because 
instead of being polite to them, and saying How^dyedo? like 
me, people aim pistols at them. I've been among savages — 
cannibals and all sorts. Everybody said they'd kill me. But 
when I met them, I said Howdyedo? and they were quite 
nice. The kings always wanted to marry me. 

Sir Howard. That does not seem to me to make you any 
safer here, Cicely. You shall certainly not stir a step beyond the 
protection of the consul, if I can help it, without a strong escort. 

Lady Cicely. I don't want an escort. 

Sir Howard. I do. And I suppose you will expect me 
to accompany you. 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 21 

Raxkix. 'Tis not safe, Leddy Ceecily. Really and truly, 
'tis not safe. The tribes are verra fierce; and there are cities 
here that no Christian has ever set foot in. If you go with- 
out being well protected, the first chief you meet will seize 
you and send you back again to prevent his followers mur- 
dering you. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, how nice of him, Mr. Rankin! 

Rankin. He would not do it for your sake, Leddy Ceecily, 
but for his own. The Sultan would get into trouble with 
England if you were killed; and the Sultan would kill the chief 
to pacify the English government. 

Lady Cicely. But I always go everywhere. I k n o w the 
people here won't touch me. They have such nice faces and 
such pretty scenery. 

Sir Howard (to Rankin, sitting down again resignedly). 
You can imagine how much use there is in talking to a woman 
who admires the faces of the ruffians who infest these ports, 
Mr. Rankin. Can anything be done in the way of an escort ? 

Rankin. There is a certain Captain Brassbound here who 
trades along the coast, and occasionally escorts parties of 
merchants on journeys into the interior. I understand that 
he served under Gordon in the Soudan. 

Sir Howard. That sounds promising. But I should like 
to know a little more about him before I trust myself in his 
hands. 

Rankix". I quite agree with you. Sir Howrrd. I'll send 
Felix Drinkwotter for him. (He claps his hands. An Arab 
boy appears at the house door.) Muley: is sailor man here.'' 
(Midey nods.) Tell sailor man bring captain. (Muley nods 
and goes.) 

Sir Howard. Who is Drinkwater? 

Rankin. His agent, or mate : I don't rightly know which. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, if he has a mate named Felix Drink- 
water, it must be quite a respectable crew. It is such a 
nice name. 

Rankin. You saw him here just now. He is a convert 
of mine. 



22 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Lady Cicely (delighted). That nice truthful sailor! 

Sir Howard (horrified). What! The Hooligan! 

Rankin (puzzled). Hooligan? No, my lord: he is an 
Englishman. 

Sir Howard. My dear Mr. Rankin, this man was tried 
before me on a charge of street ruffianism. 

Rankin. So he told me. He was badly broat up, I am 
afraid. But he is now a converted man. 

Lady Cicely. Of course he is. His telling you so frankly 
proves it. You know, really, Howard, all those poor people 
whom you try arc more sinned against than sinning. If you 
would only talk to them in a friendly way instead of passing 
cruel sentences on them, you would find them quite nice to 
you. (Indignantly) I won't have this poor man trampled on 
merely because his mother brought him up as a Hooligan. 
I am sure nobody could be nicer than he was when he spoke 
to us. 

Sir Howard. In short, we are to have an escort of Hooli- 
gans commanded by a filibuster. Very well, very well. You 
will most likely admire all their faces; and I have no doubt 
at all that they will admire yours. 

Drinkwater comes from the house with an Italian dressed 
in a much worn suit of blue serge, a dilapidated Alpine hat, 
and boots laced with scraps of twine. He remains near the 
door, whilst Drinkwater comes forward between Sir Howard 
and Lady Cicely. 

Drinkwater. Yr honor's servant. (To the Italian) 
Mawtzow: is lawdship Sr Ahrd EUam. (Marzo touches his 
hat.) Er Lidyship Lidy Winefleet. (Marzo tovxihes his hat.) 
Hawtellian shipmite, hdy. Hahr chef. 

Lady Cicely (nodding affably to Marzo). Howdyedo? I 
love Italy. What part of it were you born in.^ 

Drinkwater. Worn't bawn in Hitly at all, lidy. Bawn 
in Ettn Gawdn (Hatton Garden). Hawce barrer an street 
pianner Hawtellian, lidy: thet's wot e is. Kepn Brarsbahnd's 
respects to yr honors; an e awites yr commawnds. 

Rankin. Shall we go indoors to see him? 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 23 

Sir Howard. I think we had better have a look at him 
by daylight. 

Rankin. Then we must lose no time: the dark is soon 
down in this latitude. {To Drinkwater) Will ye ask him to 
step out here to us, Mr. Drinkwotter? 

Drinkwater. Rawt you aw, gavner. ( He goes officiously 
into the house.) 

Lady Cicely and Rankin sit down as before to receive the 
Captain. The light is by this time waning rapidly^ the dark- 
ness creeping west into the orange crimson. 

Lauy Cicely (whispering). Don't you feel rather creepy, 
Mr. Kankin ? I wonder what he'll be like. 

Rankin. I misdoubt me he will not answer, your leddy- 
ship. 

There is a scuffling noise in the hou^e; and Drinkwater 
shoots out through the doortvay across the garden with every 
appearance of having been violently kicked. Marzo immedi- 
ately hurries down the garden on Sir Howard's right out of 
the neighborhood of the doorway, 

Drinkwater {trying to put a cheerful air on much mortifica- 
tion and bodily anguish). Narsty step to thet ere door — 
tripped me hap, it did. {Raising his voice and narrowly 
escaping a squeak of pain) Kepn Brarsbahnd. {He gets as 
far from the house as possible, mi Rankin's left, Rankin 
rises to receive his guest.) 

An olive complexioned man with dark southern eyes and 
hair comes from the house. Age about 36. Handsome features, 
but joyless; dark eyebrows drawn towards one another; mouth 
set grimly; nostrils large and strained: a face set to one tragic 
purpose. A man of few words, fewer gestures, and much 
significance. On the whole, interesting, and even attractive, 
but not friendly. He stands for a moment, saturnine in the 
ruddy light, to see who is present, looking in a singular and 
rather deadly way at Sir Howard; then with some surprise 
and uneasiness at Lady Cicely. Finally he comes down into 
the middle of the garden, and confronts Rankin, who has been 
staring at him in consternation from the moment of his en- 



S4 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Acrl 

tra7ice, and continues to do so in so marked a way that the glow 
in Brassbound's eyes deepens as he begins to take offence. 

Brassbound. Well, sir, have you stared your fill at me? 

Rankin {recovering himself with a start). I ask your par- 
don for my bad manners, Captain Brassbound. Ye are 
extraordinair lek an auld college friend of mine, whose face 
I said not ten minutes gone that I could no longer bring to 
mind. It was as if he had come from the grave to remind 
me of it. 

Brassbound. Why have you sent for me? 

Rankin. We have a matter of business with ye. Captain. 

Brassbound. Who are "we"? 

Rankin. This is Sir Howrrd Hallam, who will be well 
known to ye as one of Her Majesty's judges. 

Brassbound {turning the singular look again on Sir 
Howard). The friend of the widow! the protector of the 
fatherless ! 

Sir Howard (startled). I did not know I was so favorably 
spoken of in these parts. Captain Brassbound. We want an 
escort for a trip into the mountains. 

Brassbound (ignoring this announcement). Who is the lady ? 

Rankin. Lady Ceecily Waynflete, his lordship's sister- 
in-law. 

Lady Cicely. Howdyedo, Captain Brassbound? (He 
bows gravely.) 

Sir Howard (a little impatient of these questions, which 
strike him as somewhat impertinent). Let us come to business, 
if you please. We are thinking of making a short excursion 
to see the country about here. Can you provide us with an 
escort of respectable, trustworthy men? 

Brassbound. No. 

Drinkwater (in strong remonstrance), Nah, nah, nah! 
Nah look eah, Kepn, y' knaow 

Brassbound (between his teeth). Hold your tongue. 

Drinkv^ater (abjectly). Yuss, Kepn. 

Rankin. I understood it was your business to provide 
escorts. Captain Brassbound. 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 25 

Brassbound. You were rightly informed. That i s my 
business. 

Lady Cicely. Then why won't you do it for us? 

Brassbound. You are not content with an escort. You 
want respectable, trustworthy men. You should have brought 
a division of London policemen with you. My men are 
neither respectable nor trustworthy. 

Drinkwater {unahle to contain himself). Nah, nah, look 
eah, Kepn. If you want to be moddist, be moddist on your 
aown accahnt, nort on mawn. 

Brassbound. You see what my men are like. That 
rascal {indicating Marzo) would cut a throat for a dollar if 
he had courage enough. 

Marzo. I not understand. I no spik Englis. 

Brassbound. This thing {^pointing to Drinkivcder) is the 
greatest liar, thief, drunkard, and rapscallion on the west 
coast. 

Drinkwater (ajfecting an ironic indifference). Gow om, 
gow orn. Sr Ahrd ez erd witnesses to maw kerrickter afoah. 
E knaows ah mech to beheve of em. 

Lady Cicely. Captain Brassbound: I have heard all that 
before about the blacks; and I found them very m'ce people 
when they were properly treated. 

Drinkwater (chuckling: the Italian is also grinning). Nah, 
Kepn, nah! Owp yr prahd o y'seolf nah. 

Brassbound. I quite understand the proper treatment for 
him, madam. If he opens his mouth again without my 
leave, I will break every bone in his skin. 

Lady Cicely (in her most sunnily matter-of-fact way). 
Does Captain Brassbound always treat you like this, Mr. 
Drinkwater? 

Drinkwater hesitates, and looks apprehensively at the 
Captain. 

Brassbound. Answer, you dog, when the lady orders 
you. (To Lady Cicely) Do not address him as Mr. Drink- 
water, madam: he is accustomed to be called Brandy faced 
Jack. 



26 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

Drinkwater {indignantly). Eah, aw sy! nah look eah, 
Kepn: maw nime is Drinkworter. You awsk em et Sin 
Jorn's in the Worterleoo Rowd. Orn maw grenfawther's 
tombstown, it is. 

Brassbound. It will be on your own tombstone, pres- 
ently, if you cannot hold your tongue. {Turning to the others) 
Let us understand one another, if you please. An escort here, 
or anywhere where there are no regular disciplined forces, is 
what its captain makes it. If I undertake this business, / 
shall be your escort. I may require a dozen men, just as I 
may require a dozen horses. Some of the horses will be vi- 
cious; so will all the men. If either horse or man tries any of 
his viciousness on me, so much the worse for him; but it will 
make no difference to you. I will order my men to behave 
themselves before the lady; and they shall obey their orders. 
But the lady will please understand that I take my own way 
with them and suffer no interference. 

Lady Cicely. Captain Brassbound: I don't want an 
escort at all. It will simply get us all into danger; and I shall 
have the trouble of getting it out again. That's what escorts 
always do. But since Sir Howard prefers an escort, I think 
you had better stay at home and let me take charge of it. I 
know your men will get on perfectly well if they're properly 
treated. 

Drinkwater {with enthusiasm). Feed aht o yr and, lidy, 
we would. 

^RA.s>SBOxmTi {with sardonic assent). Good. I agree. {To 
Drinkwater) You shall go without me. 

Drinkwater {terrified). Eah! Wot are you a syin orn? 
We cawn't gow withaht yer. {To Lady Cicely) Naow, lidy: 
it wouldn't be for yr hown good. Yer cawn't hexpect a lot 
o poor honeddikited men lawk huz to ran ahrseolvs into 
dineger withaht naow Kepn to teoU us wot to do. Naow, 
lidy: hoonawted we stend: deevawdid we fall. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, if you prefer your captain, have him 
by all means. Do you I i k e to be treated as he treats you? 

Drinkwater {with a smile oj vanity). Weoll, lidy: y 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 27 

cawn't deenaw that e's a Paffick Genlmn. Bit hawbitrairy, 
preps; but hin a genlmn you looks for sich. It tikes a hawbi- 
trairy wanne to knock aht them eathen Shikes, aw teoll yer. 

Brassbound. That's enough. Go. 

Drinkwater. Weoll, aw was hownly a teoUn the hdy 
thet — (A threatening movement from Brassbound cuts him 
short. He flies for his life into the house, folloived by the 
Italian.) 

Brassbound. Your ladyship sees. These men serve me 
by their own free choice. If they are dissatisfied, they go. 
If / am dissatisfied, they go. They take care that I am not 
dissatisfied. 

Sir Howard (icho has listened with approval and growing 
confidence). Captain Brassbound: you are the man I want. 
If your terms are at all reasonable, I will accept your ser\'ices 
if we decide to make an excursion. You do not object, 
Cicely, I hope. 

Lady Cicely. Oh no. After all, those men must really 
Hke you. Captain Brassbound. I feel sure you have a kind 
heart. You have such nice eyes. 

Sir How^\rd {scandalized). My dear Cicely: you really 
must restrain your expressions of confidence in people's eyes 
and faces. (To Brassbound) Now, about terms. Captain? 

Brassbound. Where do you propose to go? 

Sir Howard. I hardly know. Where c a n we go, Mr. 
Rankin ? 

Rankin. Take my advice, Sir Howrrd. Don't go far. 

Brassbound. I can take you to Meskala, from which you 
can see the Atlas Mountains. From Meskala I can take you 
to an ancient castle in the hills, where you can put up as long 
as you please. The customary charge is half a dollar a man 
per day and his food. I charge double. 

Sir Howard. I suppose you answer for your men being 
sturdy fellows, who will stand to theii guns if necessar}\ 

Brassbound. I can answer for their being more afraid of 
me than of the Moors. 

Lady Cicely. That doesn't matter in the least, Howard. 



28 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act I 

The important thing, Captain Brassbound, is: first, that we 
should have as few men as possible, because men give such a 
lot of trouble travelling. And then, they must have good 
lungs and not be always catching cold. Above all, their 
clothes must be of good wearing material. Otherwise I shall 
be nursing and stitching and mending all the way; and it will 
be trouble enough, I assure you, to keep them washed and fed 
without that. 

Brassbound {haughtily). My men, madam, are not 
children in the nursery. 

Lady" Cicely {with unanswerable conviction). Captain 
Brassbound: a 1 1 men are children in the nursery. I see that 
you don't notice things. That poor Italian had only one 
proper bootlace: the other was a bit of string. And I am 
sure from Mr. Drinkwater's complexion that he ought to 
have some medicine. 

Brassbound {outwardly determined not to be trifled with: 
inwardly puzzled and rather daunted). Madam: if you want 
an escort, I can provide you with an escort. If you want a 
Sunday School treat, I can not provide it. 

Lady Cicely {with sweet melancholy). Ah, don't you wish 
you could. Captain ? Oh, if I could only shew you my children 
from Waynflete Sunday School! The darlings would love 
this place, with all the camels and black men. I'm sure you 
would enjoy having them here, Captain Brassbound; and it 
would be such an education for your men! {Brassbound 
stares at her with drying lips.) 

Sir Howard. Cicely: when you have quite done talking 
nonsense to Captain Brassbound, we can proceed to make 
some definite arrangement with him. 

Lady Cicely. But it's arranged already. We'll start at 
eight o'clock to-morrow morning, if you please, Captain. 
Never mind about the Italian : I have a big box of clothes with 
me for my brother in Rome; and there are some bootlaces in 
it. Now go home to bed and don't fuss yourself. All you 
have to do is to bring your men round ; and I'll see to the rest. 
Men are always so nervous about moving. Goodnight. (She 



Act I Captain Brassbound's Conversion 29 

offers him her hand. Surprised, he pidls off his cap for the 
first time. Some scruple prevents him from taking her hand at 
once. He hesitates; then turns to Sir Howard and addresses 
him with warning earnestness.) 

Brassbound. Sir Howard Hallam: I advise you not to 
attempt this expedition. 

Sir Howard. Indeed! Why? 

Brassbound. You are safe here. I warn you, in those 
hills there is a justice that is not the justice of your courts in 
England. If you have wronged a man, you may meet that 
man there. If you have wronged a woman, you may meet 
her son there. The justice of those hills is the justice of 
vengeance. 

Sir Howard {faintly amused). You are superstitious. 
Captain. Most sailors are, I notice. However, I have com- 
plete confidence in your escort. 

Brassbound (almost threateningly). Take care. The 
avenger may be one of the escort. 

Sir Howard. I have already met the only member of 
your escort who might have borne a grudge against me. 
Captain; and he was acquitted. 

Brassbound. You are fated to come, then? 

Sir Howard (smiling). It seems so. 

Brassbound. On your head be it! (To Lady Cicely, 
accepting her hand at last) Goodnight. 

He goes. It is by this time starry night. 

end of act I. 



ACT II 

Midday. A room in a Moorish castle. A divan seat runs 
round the dilapidated adobe icalls, which are partly painted^ 
partly faced with white tiles patterned in green and yellow. 
The ceiling is made up of little squares, painted in bright 
colors, ivith gilded edges, and ornamented with gilt knobs. 
On the cement floor are mattings, sheepskins, arid leathern 
cushions with geometrical patterns on them. There is a tiny 
Moorish table in the middle; and at it a huge saddle, with 
saddle cloths of various colors, shewing that the room is used 
by foreigners accustomed to chairs. Anyone sitting at the table 
in this seat woidd have the chief entrance, a large horseshoe 
arch, on his left, and another saddle seat between him and 
the arch; whilst, if susceptible to draughts, he would probably 
catch cold from a little Moorish door in the wall behind him 
to his right. 

Two or three of Brassbound's men, overcome by the midday 
heat, sprawl supine on the floor, ivifh their reefer coats under 
their heads, their knees uplifted, and their calves laid comfort- 
ably on the divan. Those who wear shirts have them open 
at the throat for greater coolness. Some have jerseys. All 
wear boots and belts, and have guns ready to their hands. One 
of them, lying with his head against the second saddle seat, 
wears what luas once a fashionable white English yachting 
suit. He is evidently a pleasantly worthless young English 
gentleman gone to the bad, but retaining sufficient self-respect 
to shave carefidly and brush his hair, which is wearing thin, 
and does not seem to have been luxuriant even in its best days. 

The silence is broken only by the snores of the young gentle- 
man, whose mouth has fallen open, until a few distant shots 
half waken him. He shuts his mouth convidsively, and opens 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 31 

his eyes sleepily. A door is violently kicked ovtside; and the 
voice of Drinkwater is heard raising urgent alarm. 

Drinkwater. Wot ow! Wike ap there, will yr. Wike 
ap. (He ru.shes in through the horseshoe arch, hot and ex- 
cited, and runs round, kicking the sleepers) Nah then. Git 
ap. Git ap, will yr, Kiddy Redbrook. (He gives the young 
gentleman a rude shove.) 

Redbrook (sitting up). Stow that, will you. What's 
amiss ? 

Drinkwater (disgusted). Wot's amiss! Didn't eah naow 
fawrin, I spowse. 

Redbrook. No. 

Drinkwater (sneering). Naow. Thort it sifer nort, 
didn't yr.? 

Redbrook (with crisp intelligence). What! You're running 
away, are you ? (He springs up, crying) Look alive. Johnnies : 
there's danger. Brandyfaced Jack's on the run. (They 
spring up hastily, grasping their guns.) 

Drinkwater. Dineger! Yuss: should think there wors 
dineger. It's howver, thow, as it mowstly his baw the tawm 
you're awike. (They relapse into lassitude.) Waw wasn't 
you on the look-aht to give us a end? Bin hattecked baw 
the Benny Seeras (Beni Siras), we ev, an ed to rawd for it 
pretty strite, too, aw teoU yr. Mawtzow is it: the bullet 
glawnst all rahnd is bloomin brisket. Brarsbahnd e dropt 
the Shike's oss at six unnern fifty yawds. (Bustling them 
about) Nah then: git the plice ready for the British herris- 
torcracy, Lawd Ellam and Lidy Wineflete. 

Redbrook. Lady faint, eh? 

Drinkwater. Fynt! Not lawkly. Wornted to gow an 
talk to the Benny Seeras: blaow me if she didn't! Harskt 
huz wot we was frahtnd of. Tyin ap Mawtzow 's wound, 
she is, like a bloomin orspittle nass. (Sir Howard, with a 
copious pagri on his white hat, enters through the horseshoe 
arch, followed by a couple of men supporting the wounded 
Marzo, who, weeping and terrorstricken by the prospect of 
death and of subsequent torments for which he is conscious of 



32 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

having eminently qualified himself, has his coat off and a 
bandage round his chest. One of his supporters is a black- 
bearded, thickset, slow, middle-aged man with an air of damaged 
respectability, named — as it afterwards appears — Johnson. 
Lady Cicely walks beside Marzo. Redbrook, a little shame- 
faced, crosses the room to the opposite wall as far away as pos- 
sible from the visitors. Drinkwater turns and receives them 
with jocular ceremony.) Weolcome to Brarsbahnd Cawstl, 
Sr Ahrd an lidy. This eah is the corfee and commercial room. 

Sir Howard goes to the table and sits on the saddle, rather 
exhausted. Lady Cicely comes to Drinkwater. 

Lady Cicely. Where is Marzo's bed ? 

Drinkwater. Is bed, Hdy? WeoU: e ynt petickler, lidy. 
E ez is chawce of henny flegstown agin thet wall. 

They deposit Marzo on the flags against the wall close to 
the little door. He groans. Johnson phlegmatically leaves 
him and joins Redbrook. 

Lady Cicely. But you can't leave him there in that state. 

Drinkwater. Ow: e's hall rawt. {Strolling up callously 
to Marzo) You're hall rawt, ynt yer, Mawtzow? (Marzo 
whimpers.) Corse y'aw. 

Lady Cicely (to Sir Howard). Did you ever see such a 
helpless lot of poor creatures? (She makes for the little 
door.) 

Drinkwater. Eah! (He runs to the door and places him- 
self before it.) Where mawt yr lidyship be gowin ? 

Lady Cicely. I'm going through every room in this ca.stle 
to find a proper place to put that man. And now I'll tell 
you where you're going. You're going to get some water 
for Marzo, who is very thirsty. And then, when I've chosen 
a room for him, you're going to make a bed for him there. 

Drinkwater (sarcastically). Ow! Henny ather little 
suwice? Mike yrseolf at owm, y' knaow, lidy. 

Lady Cicely (considerately). Don't go if you'd rather not, 
Mr. Drinkwater. Perhaps you're too tired. (Turning to the 
archway) I'll ask Captain Brassbound: he won't mind. 

Drinkwater (terrified, running after her and getting be- 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 33 

tween her and the arch). Naow, naow! Naow, lidy: down't 
you gow disturbin the Kepn. Awll see to it. 

Lady Cicely (gravely). I was sure you would, Mr. Drink- 
water. You have such a kind face. (She turns back and goes 
out through the small door.) 

Drinkwater (looking after her). Gam! 

Sir Howard (to Drinkwater). Will you ask one of your 
friends to show me to my room whilst you are getting the 
water ? 

Drinkwater (insolently). Yr room! Ow: this ynt good 
enaf fr yr, ynt it.? (Ferociously) Oo a you orderin abaht, ih? 

Sir Howard (rising quietly, and taking refuge between 
Redbrook and Johnson, whom he addresses). Can you find me 
a more private room than this ? 

Johnson (shaking his head). I've no orders. You must 
wait til the capn comes, sir. 

Drinkwater (following Sir Howard). Yuss; an whawl 
you're witin, yll tike your borders from me: see? 

Johnson (with slow severity, to Drinkwater). Look here: 
do you see three genlmen talkin to one another here, civil 
and private, eh .'' 

Drinkwater (chapf alien) . No offence, Miste Jornsn 

Johnson (ominously). Ay; but thereisofi'ence. Where's 
your manners, you guttersnipe? (Turning to Sir Howard) 
That's the curse o this kind o life, sir: you got to associate 
with all sorts. My father, sir, was Capn Johnson o Hull — 
owned his own schooner, sir. We're mostly gentlemen here, 
sir, as you'll find, except the poor ignorant foreigner and 
that there scum of the submerged tenth. (Contemptuously 
talking at Drinkivater) He ain't nobody's son: he's only 
a offspring o coster folk or such. 

Drinkwater (bursting into tears). Clawss feelin! thet's 
wot it is: clawss feelin! Wot are yer, arter all, bat a bloomin 
gang o wust cowst cazhls (casual ward paupers) ? (Johnson 
is scandalized; and there is a general thrill of indignation.) 
Better ev naow fembly, an rawse aht of it, lawk me, than ev 
a specble one and disgrice it, lawk you. 



34 Captain Brassbound*s Conversion Act II 

Johnson. Brandyfaced Jack: I name you for conduct 
and language unbecoming to a gentleman. Those who agree 
will signify the same in the usual manner. 

All {vehementhj) . Aye. 

Drinkwater {wildly). Naow. 

Johnson. Felix Drinkwater: are you goin out, or are you 
goin to wait til you're chucked out? You can cry in the 
passage. If you give any trouble, you'll have something to 
cry for. 

They make a threatening movement towards Drinkwater. 

Drinkwater (whimpering). You lee me alown: awm 
gowin. There's n'maw true demmecrettick feelin eah than 
there is in the owl bloomin M division of Noontn Corzwy 
coppers {Newington Causeway 'policemen). 

As he slinks away in tears towards the arch, Brassbound 
enters. Drinkwater promptly shelters himself on the captain* s 
left hand, the others retreating to the opposite side as Brass- 
bound advances to the middle of the room. Sir Howard retires 
behind them arid seats himself on the divan, much fatigued. 

Brassbound {to Drinkwater). What are you snivelling at? 

Drinkwater. You awsk the wust cowst herristorcracy. 
They fawnds maw cornduck hanbecammin to a genlmn. 

Brassbound is about to ask Johnson for an explanation, when 
Lady Cicely returns through the little door, and comes between 
Brassbound and Drinkwater. 

Lady Cicely {to Drinkwater). Have you fetched the 
water ? 

Drinkwater. Yuss: nahyou begin orn me. (He weeps 
afresh.) 

Lady Cicely {surprised). Oh! This won't do, Mr. 
Drinkwater. If you cry, I can't let you nurse your friend. 

Drinkwater {frantic). Thet'U brike maw awt, wown't it 
nah ? {With a lamentable sob, he throws himself down on the 
divan, raging like an angry child.) 

Lady Cicely {after contemplating him in astonishment for a 
moment). Captain Brassbound: are there any charwomen in 
the Atlas Mountains? 



Act TI Captain Brassbound's Conversion 35 

Brassbound. There are people here who will work if you 
pay them, as there are elsewhere. 

Lady Cicely. This castle is very romantic, Captain; but 
it hasn't had a spring cleaning since the Prophet lived in it- 
There 's only one room I can put that wounded man into. It's 
the only one that has a bed in it: the second room on the right 
out of that passage. 

Brassbound {haughtily)^ That is my room, madam. 

Lady Cicely (relieved). Oh, that's all right. It would 
have been so awkward if I had had to ask one of your men 
to turn out. You won't mind, I know. (All the men stare 
at her. Even Drinkwater forgets his sorrows in his stupefaction.) 

Brassbound. Pray, madam, have you made any arrange- 
ments for my accommodation? 

Lady Cicely (reassuringly). Yes: you can have my room 
instead, wherever it may be: I'm sure you chose me a nice 
one. I must be near my patient; and I don't mind roughing 
it. Now I must have Marzo moved very carefully. Where 
is that truly gentlemanly Mr. Johnson.'* — oh, there you are, 
Mr. Johnson. (She runs to Johnson, past Brassbound, who 
has to step back hastily out of her way with every expression 
frozen out of his jac. except one of extreme and indignant dumb- 
foundedness.) Will you ask your strong friend to help you 
with Marzo : strong people are always so gentle. 

Johnson. Let me introdooce Mr. Redbrook. Your lady- 
ship may know his father, the very Rev. Dean Redbrook. (He 
goes to Marzo.) 

Redbrook. Happy to oblige you, Lady Cicely. 

Lady Cicely (shaking hands). Howdyedo? Of course I 
knew your father — Dunham, wasn't it? Were you ever 
called 

Redbrook. The kid? Yes. 

Lady Cicely. But why 

Redbrook (anticipating the rest of the question). Cards 
and drink, Lady Sis. (He follows Johnson to the patient. 
Lady Cicely goes too.) Now, Count Marzo. (Marzo groans 
as Johnson and Redbrook raise him.) 



36 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

Lady Cicely. Now they're not hurting you, Marzo. 
They couldn't be more gentle. 

Marzo. Drink. 

Lady Cicely. I'll get you some water myself. Your 
friend Mr. Drinkwater was too overcome — take care of the 
corner — that's it — the second door on the right. {She goes 
out with Marzo and his bearers through the little door.) 

Brassbound (still staring). Well, lam damned! 

Drinkwater (getting up). Weoll, blimey! 

Brassbound (turning irritably on him). What did you 



say 



Drinkwater. Weoll, wot did yer sy yrseolf, kepn? 
Fust tawm aw yever see y' afride of ennybody. (The others 
laugh.) 

Brassbound. Afraid! 

Drinkwater (maliciously). She's took y' bed from hander 
yr for a bloomin penny hawcemen. If y' ynt afride, let's eah 
yer speak ap to er wen she cams bawck agin. 

Brassbound (to Sir Howard). I wish you to understand. 
Sir Howard, that in this castle, it is I who give orders, and no 
one else. Will you be good enough to let Lady Cicely Wayn- 
flete know that. 

Sir Howard (sitting up on the divan and pulling himself 
together). You will have ample opportunity for speaking to 
Lady Cicely yourself when she returns. (Drinkwater chuck- 
les; and the rest grin.) 

Brassbound. My manners are rough, Sir Howard. I 
have no wish to frighten the lady. 

Sir Howard. Captain Brassbound: if you can frighten 
Lady Cicely, you will confer a great obligation on her family. 
If she had any sense of danger, perhaps she would keep out 
of it. 

Brassbound. Well, sir, if she were ten Lady Cicelys, she 
must consult me while she is here. 

Drinkwater. Thet's rawt, kepn. Let's eah you steblish 
yr hawthority. (Brassbound turns impatiently on him: he 
retreats remonstrating) Nah, nah, nah! 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 37 

Sir Howard. If you feel at all nervous, Captain Brass- 
bound, I will mention the matter with pleasure. 

Brassbound. Nervous, sir! no. Nervousness is not in 
my line. You will find me perfectly capable of saying what 
I want to say — with considerable emphasis, if necessary. 
{Sir Howard assents with a polite but incredulous nod.) 

Drinkwater. Eah, eah! 

Lady Cicely returns with Johnson and Redbrook. She 
carries a jar. 

Lady Cicely {stopping between the door and the arch). 
Now for the water. Where is it.^ 

Redbrook. There's a well in the courtyard. I'll come 
and work the bucket. 

Lady Cicely. So good of you, Mr. Kidbrook. {She makes 
for the horseshoe arch, followed by Redbrook.) 

Drinkwater. Nah, Kepn Brarsbahnd: you got sathink 
to sy to the lidy, ynt yr.? 

Lady Cicely {stopping). I'll come back to hear it pres- 
ently. Captain. And oh, while I remember it {coming 
forivard between Brassbound and Drinkwater), do please tell 
me. Captain, if I interfere with your arrangements in any way. 
If I disturb you the least bit in the world, stop me at once. 
You have all the responsibility; and your comfort and your 
authority must be the first thing. You'll tell me, won't you? 

Brassbound {awkwardly, quite beaten). Pray do as you 
please, madam. 

Lady Cicely. Thank you. That's so like you. Captain. 
Thank you. Now, Mr. Redbrook! Show me the way to the 
well. {She follows Redbrook out through the arch.) 

Drinkwater. Yah! Yah! Shime! Beat baw a woman! 

Johnson {coming forward on Brassbound's right). What's 
wrong now.^ 

Drinkwater {ivith an air of disappointment and disillu- 
sion). Down't awsk me, Miste Jornsn. The kepn's naow 
clawss arter all. 

Brassbound (a little shamefacedly). What has she been 
fixing up in there, Johnson? 



38 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

Johnson. Well: Marzo's in your bed. Lady wants to 
make a kitchen of the Sheikh's audience chamber, and to 
put me and the Kid handy in his bedroom in case Marzo gets 
erysipelas and breaks out violent. From what I can make 
out, she means to make herself matron of this institution. 
I spose it's all right, isn't it? 

Drinkwater. Yuss, an border huz abaht as if we was 
keb tahts! An the kepn afride to talk bawck at er! 

Lady Cicely returns with Redhrook. She carries the jar 
full of water. 

Lady Cicely {putting down the jar, and coining between 
Brassbound and Drinkwater as before). And now, Captain, 
before I go to poor Marzo, what have you to say to me ? 

Brassbound. I! Nothing. 

Drinkwater. Down't fank it, gavner. Be a men! 

Lady Cicely (looking at Drinkwater, puzzled). Mr. 
Drinkwater said you had. 

Brassbound (recovering himself). It was only this. That 
fellow there (pointing to Drinkwater) is subject to fits of 
insolence. If he is impertinent to your ladyship, or diso- 
bedient, you have my authority to order him as many kicks 
as you think good for him; and I will see that he gets them. 

Drinkwater (lifting up his voice in protest). Nah, nah 

Lady Cicely. Oh, I couldn't think of such a thing, 
Captain Brassbound. I am sure it would hurt Mr. Drink- 
water. 

Drinkwater (lachrymosely). Lidy's hinkyp'ble o sich 
bawbrous usage. 

Lady Cicely. But there's one thing I should like, if 
Mr. Drinkwater won't mind my mentioning it. It's so im- 
portant if he's to attend on Marzo. 

Brassbound. What is that.? 

Lady Cicely. Well — you won't mind, Mr. Drinkwater, 
will you? 

Drinkwater (suspiciously). Wot is it? 

Lady Cicely. There would be so much less danger of 
erysipelas if you would be so good as to take a bath. 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 39 

Drinkwater (aghast). A bawth! 

Brassbound (m tones of command). Stand by, all hands. 
(They stand by.) Take that man and wash him. (With a 
roar of laughter they seize him.) 

Drinkwater (in an agony of protest). Naow, naow. 
Look eah 

Brassbound (ruthlessly). In cold water. 

Drinkwater (shrieking). Na-a-a-a-ow. Aw cawn't, aw 
teol yer. Naow. Aw sy, look eah. Naow, naow, naow, 
naow, naow, NAOW!!! 

He is dragged away through the arch in a whirlwind of 
laughter, protests and tears. 

Lady Cicely. I'm afraid he isn't used to it, poor fellow; 
but r e a 1 1 y it will do him good. Captain Brassbound. Now 
I must be off to my patient. (She takes up her jar and goes 
out by the little door, leaving Brassbound and Sir Howard 
alone together.) 

Sir Howard (rising). And now. Captain Brass 

Brassbound (cutting him short with a fierce contempt that 
astonishes him). I will attend to you presently. (Calling) 
Johnson. Send me Johnson there. And Osman. (He pulls 
off his coat and throws it on the table, standing at his ease in 
his blue jersey.) 

Sir Howard (after a momentary flush of anger, with a 
controlled force that compels Brassbound's attention in spite 
of himself). You seem to be in a strong position with refer- 
ence to these men of yours. 

Brassbound. I am in a strong position with reference to 
everyone in this castle. 

Sir Howard (politely bid threateningly). I have just been 
noticing that you think so. I do not agree with you. Her 
Majesty's Government, Captain Brassbound, has a strong 
arm and a long arm. If anything disagreeable happens to 
me or to my sister-in-law, that arm will be stretched out. If 
that happens you will not be in a strong position. Excuse 
my reminding you of it. 

Brassboun d (grimly) . Much good may it do you ! (John- 



40 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

son comes in through the arch.) Where is Osman, the Sheikh's 
messenger ? I want him too. 

Johnson. Coming, Captain. He had a prayer to finish. 

Osman, a tally skinny, whiteclad, elderly Moor, appears in 
the archway. 

Brassbound. Osman AH {Osman comes forward between 
Brassbound and Johnson): you have seen this unbehever 
(indicating Sir Howard) come in with us? 

Osman. Yea, and the shameless one with the naked face, 
who flattered my countenance and offered me her hand. 

Johnson. Yes; and you took it too, Johnny, didn't you? 

Brassbound. Take horse, then; and ride fast to your 
master the Sheikh Sidi el Assif 

OsxMan (proudly). Kinsman to the Prophet. 

Brassbound. Tell him what you have seen here. That 
is all. Johnson: give him a dollar; and note the hour of his 
going, that his master may know how fast he rides. 

Osman. The believer's word shall prevail with Allah and 
his servant Sidi el Assif. 

Brassbound. Off with you. 

OsxMAN. Make good thy master's word ere I go out from 
his presence, O Johnson el Hull. 

Johnson. He wants the dollar. 

Brassbound gives Osman a coin. 

Osman (bowing). Allah will make hell easy for the friend 
of Sidi el Assif and his servant. (He goes out through the 
arch.) 

Brassbound (to Johnson). Keep the men out of this until 
the Sheikh comes. I have business to talk over. When he 
does come, we must keep together all: Sidi el Assif 's natural 
instinct will be to cut every Christian throat here. 

Johnson. We look to you, Captain, to square him, since 
you invited him over. 

Brassbound. You can depend on me; and you know it, 
I think. 

Johnson (phlegmatically) . Yes : we know it. (He is going 
out when Sir Howard speaks.) 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 41 

Sir Howard. You know also, Mr. Johnson, I hope, that 
you can depend on me. 

J OHSSON (turning). On you, sir? 

Sir Howard. Yes: on me. If my throat is cut, the 
Sultan of Morocco may send Sidi's head with a hundred thou- 
sand dollars blood-money to the Colonial Office; but it will 
not be enough to save his kingdom — any more than it would 
save your life, if your Captain here did the same thing. 

Johnson (struck). Is that so. Captain? 

Brassbound. I know the gentleman's value — better per- 
haps than he knows it himself. I shall not lose sight of it. 

Johnson nods gravely, and is going out ichen Lady Cicely 
returns softly by the little door and calls to him in a whisper. 
She has taken off her travelling things and put on an apron. 
At her chatelaine is a case of sewing materials. 

Lady Cicely. Mr. Johnson. (He turns.) I've got Marzo 
to sleep. Would you mind asking the gentlemen not to make 
a noise under his window in the courtyard. 

Johnson. Right, maam. (He goes out.) 

Lady Cicely sits down at the tiny table, and begins stitching 
at a sling bandage for Marzo's arm. Brassbound walks up 
and doivn on her right, muttering to himself so ominously thai 
Sir Howard quietly gets out of his way by crossing to the other 
side and sitting down on the second saddle seat. 

Sir Howard. Are you yet able to attend to me for a 
moment, Captain Brassbound? 

Brassbound (still walking about). What do you want? 

Sir Howard. Well, I am afraid I want a little privacy, 
and, if you will allow me to say so, a little civility. I am 
greatly obliged to you for bringing us safely off to-day when 
we were attacked. So far, you have carried out your con- 
tract. But since we have been your guests here, your tone 
and that of the worst of your men has changed — intentionally 
changed, I think. 

Brassbound (stopping abruptly and flinging the announce- 
ment at him) . You are not my guest : you are my prisoner. 

Sir Howard. Prisoner! 



42 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

Lady Cicely, after a single glance up, continues stitching, 
apparently quite unconcerned. 

Brassbound. I warned you. You should have taken my 
warning. 

Sir Howard {immediately taking the tone of cold disgust 
for moral delinquency). Am I to understand, then, that you 
are a brigand? Is this a matter of ransom? 

Brassbound (with unaccountable intensity). All the wealth 
of England shall not ransom you. 

Sir Howard. Then what do you expect to gain by 
this? 

Brassbound. Justice on a thief and a murderer. 

Lady Cicely lays down her work and looks up anxiously. 

Sir Howard (deeply outraged, rising with venerable dig- 
nity). Sir: do you apply those terms to me? 

Brassbound. I do. (He turns to Lady Cicely, and adds, 
pointing contemptuously to Sir Howard) Look at him. You 
would not take this virtuously indignant gentleman for the 
uncle of a brigand, would you ? 

Sir Howard starts. The shock is too much for him: he sits 
down again, looking very old; and his hands tremble; but his 
eyes and mouth are intrepid, resolute, and angry. 

Lady Cicely. Uncle! What do you mean? 

Brassbound., Has he never told you about my mother? 
this fellow who puts on ermine and scarlet and calls himself 
Justice. 

Sir Howard (almost voiceless). You are the son of that 
Woman! 

Brassbound (fiercely). "That woman!" (He makes a 
movement as if to rush at Sir Howard.) 

Lady Cicely (rising quickly and putting her hand on his 
arm). Take care. You mustn't strike an old man. 

Brassbound (raging). He did not spare my mother — 
"that woman,'* he calls her — because of her sex. I will not 
spare him because of his age. (Lowering his tone to one of 
sullen vindictiveness) But I am not going to strike him. 
(Lady Cicely releases him, and sits down, much perplexed. 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 43 

Brasshound continues, with an evil glance at Sir Howard) I 
shall do no more than justice. 

Sir Howard (recovering his voice and vigor). Justice! I 
think you mean vengeance, disguised as justice by your pas- 
sions. 

Brassbound. To many and many a poor wretch in the 
dock you have brought vengeance in that disguise — the 
vengeance of society, disguised as justice by i t s passions. 
Now the justice you have outraged meets you disguised as 
vengeance. How do you like it? 

Sir Howard. I shall meet it, I trust, as becomes an in- 
nocent man and an upiight judge. What do you charge 
against me.^ 

Brassbound. I charge you with the death of my mother 
and the theft of my inheritance. 

Sir Howard. As to your inheritance, sir, it was yours 
whenever you came forward to claim it. Three minutes 
ago I did not know of your existence. I affirm that most 
solemnly. I never knew — never dreamt — that my brother 
Miles left a son. As to your mother, her case was a hard one 
— perhaps the hardest that has come within even my expe- 
rience. I mentioned it, as such, to Mr. Rankin, the missionary, 
the evening we met you. As to her death, you know — you 
must know — that she died in her native country, years after 
our last meeting. Perhaps you were too young to know that 
she could hardly have expected to live long. 

Brassbound. You mean that she drank. 

Sir Howard. I did not say so. I do not think she was 
always accountable for what she did. 

Brassbound. Yes: she was mad too; and whether drink 
drove her to madness or madness drove her to drink matters 
little. The question is, who drove her to both? 

Sir Howard. I presume the dishonest agent who seized 
her estate did. I repeat, it was a hard case — a frightful in- 
justice. But it could not be remedied. 

Brassbound. You told her so. When she would not 
take that false answer you drove her from your doors. When 



44 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

she exposed you in the street and threatened to take with her 
own hands the redress the law denied her, you had her im- 
prisoned, and forced her to write you an apology and leave 
the country to regain her liberty and save herself from a 
lunatic asylum. And when she was gone, and dead, and 
forgotten, you found for yourself the remedy you could not 
find for her. You recovered the estate easily enough then, 
robber and rascal that you are. Did he tell the missionary 
that, Lady Cicely, eh? 

Lady Cicely (sympathetically). Poor woman! (To Sir 
Howard) Couldn't you have helped her, Howard ? 

Sir Howard. No. This man may be ignorant enough to 
suppose that when I was a struggling barrister I could do 
everything I did when I was Attorney General. You know 
better. There is some excuse for his mother. She was an 
uneducated Brazilian, knowing nothing of English society, 
and driven mad by injustice. 

Brassbound. Your defence 

Sir Howard (interrupting him determinedly). I do not de- 
fend myself. I call on you to obey the law. 

Brassbound. I intend to do so. The law of the Atlas 
Mountains is administered by the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. He 
will be here within an hour. He is a judge like yourself. 
You can talk law to him. He will give you both the law and 
the prophets. 

Sir Howard. Does he know what the power of England 
is.? 

Brassbound. He knows that the Mahdi killed my master 
Gordon, and that the Mahdi died in his bed and went to 
paradise. 

Sir Howard. Then he knows also that England's ven- 
geance was on the Mahdi 's track. 

Brassbound. Ay, on the track of the railway from the 
Cape to Cairo. Who are you, that a nation should go to war 
for you ? If you are missing, what will your newspapers say ? 
A foolhardy tourist. What will your learned friends at the 
bar say ? That it was time for you to make room for younger 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 45 

and better men. You a national hero! You had better 
find a goldfield in the Atlas Mountains. Then all the govern- 
ments of Europe will rush to your rescue. Until then, take 
care of yourself; for you are going to see at last the hypocrisy 
in the sanctimonious speech of the judge who is sentencing 
you, instead of the despair in the white face of the wretch you 
are recommending to the mercy of your God. 

Sir Howard (deeply and personally ojjended by this slight 
to his profession, and for the first time throwing away his as- 
sumed dignity and rising to approach Brassbound with his 
fists clenched; so that Lady Cicely lifts one eye from her work 
to assure herself that the table is between them). I have no 
more to say to you, sir. I am not afraid of you, nor of any 
bandit with whom you may be in league. As to your prop- 
erty, it is ready for you as soon as you come to your senses 
and claim it as your father's heir. Commit a crime, and you 
will become an outlaw, and not only lose the property, but 
shut the doors of civilization against yourself for ever. 

Brassbound. I will not sell my mother's revenge for ten 
properties. 

Lady Cicely (placidly). Besides, really, Howard, as the 
property now costs £150 a year to keep up instead of bringing 
in anything, I am afraid it would not be of much use to him. 
(Brassbound stands amazed at this revelation.) 

Sir Howard (taken aback). I must say, Cicely, I think 
you might have chosen a more suitable moment to mention 
that fact 

Brassbound (with disgust). Agh! Trickster! Lawyer! 
Even the price you offer for your life is to be paid in false 
coin. (Calling) Hallo there! Johnson! Redbrook! Some 
of you there! (To Sir Howard) You ask for a little privacy: 
you shall have it. I will not endure the company of such a 
fellow 

Sir Howard (very angry, and fidl of the crustiest pluck). 
You insult me, sir. You are a rascal. You are a rascal. 

Johnson, Redbrook, and a few others come in through the 
arch. 



46 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

Brassbound. Take this man away. 

Johnson. Where are we to put him ? 

Brassbound. Put him where you please so long as you 
can find him when he is wanted. 

Sir Howard. You will be laid by the heels yet, my friend. 

Redbrook (with cheerful tact). Tut tut, Sir Howard: 
what's the use of talking back? Come along: we'll make 
you comfortable. 

Sir Howard goes out through the arch between Johnson 
and Redbrook, muttering wrathjully. The rest, except Brass- 
bound and Lady Cicely , follow. 

Brassbound walks up and down the room, nursing his in- 
dignation. In doing so he unconsciously enters upon an unequal 
cordest with Lady Cicely, who sits quietly stitching. It soon 
becomes clear that a tranquil woman can go on sewing longer 
than an angry man can go on fuming. Further, it begins to 
dawn on Brassbound's tvrath-blurred perception that Lady 
Cicely has at some unnoticed stage in the proceedings finished 
Marzo*s bandage, and is now stitching a coat. He stops; 
glances at his shirtsleeves; finally realizes the situation. 

Brassbound. What are you doing there, madam? 

Lady Cicely. Mending your coat, Captain Brassbound. 

Brassbound. I have no recollection of asking you to take 
that trouble. 

Lady Cicely. No: I don't suppose you even knew it was 
torn. Some men are born untidy. You cannot very well 
receive Sidi el — what's his name ? — with your sleeve half out. 

Brassbound (disconcerted). I — I don't know how it got 
torn. 

Lady Cicely. You should not get virtuously indignant 
with people. It bursts clothes more than anything else, Mr. 
Hallam. 

Brassbound (flushing, quickly). I beg you will not call 
me Mr. Hallam. I hate the name. 

Lady Cicely. Black Paquito is your pet name, isn't it? 

Brassbound (huffily). 1 am not usually called so to my 
face. 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 47 

Lady Cicely (turning the coat a little). I'm so sorry. 
{She takes another piece of thread and puts it into her needle, 
looking placidly and reflectively upward meanwhile.) Do you 
know, you are wonderfully like your uncle. 

Brassbound. Damnation! 

Lady Cicely. Eh? 

Brassbound. If I thought my veins contained a drop of 
his black blood, I would drain them empty with my knife. 
I have no relations. I had a mother: that was all. 

Lady Cicely (unconvinced). I daresay you have your 
mother's complexion. But didn't you notice Sir Howard's 
temper, his doggedness, his high spirit: above all, his belief 
in ruling people by force, as you rule your men; and in re- 
venge and punishment, just as you want to revenge your 
mother ? Didn't you recognize yourself in that ? 

Brassbound (startled). Myself! — in that! 

Lady Cicely (returning to the tailoring question as if her 
last remark were of no consequence whatever). Did this sleeve 
catch you at all under the arm ? Perhaps I had better make 
it a Httle easier for you. 

Br.\ssbound (irritably). Let my coat alone. It will do 
very well as it is. Put it down. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, don't ask me to sit doing nothing. It 
bores me so. 

Br^vssbound. In Heaven's name then, do what you like! 
Only don't worry me with it. 

Lady Cicely. I'm so sorry. All the Hallams are irri- 
table. 

Brassbound (penning up his fury with difficulty). As I 
have already said, that remark has no application to me. 

Lady Cicely (resuming her stitching). That's so funny! 
They all hate to be told that they are like one another. 

Brassbound (with the beginnings of despair in his voice). 
Why did you come here ? My trap was laid for him, not for 
you. Do you know the danger you are in ? 

Lady Cicely. There's always a danger of something or 
other. Do you think it's worth bothering about ? 



48 Captain Brassboimd's Conversion Act II 

Brassbound (scolding her). Do I think! Do you think 
my coat's worth mending? 

Lady Cicely {'prosaically). Oh yes: it's not so far gone as 
that. 

Brassbound. Have you any feehng ? Or are you a fool ? 

Lady Cicely. I'm afraid I'm a dreadful fool. But I can't 
help it. I was made so, I suppose. 

Brassbound. Perhaps you don't realize that your friend 
my good uncle will be pretty fortunate if he is allowed to 
live out his life as a slave with a set of chains on him .^ 

Lady Cicely. Oh, I don't know about that, Mr. H — I 
mean Captain Brassbound. Men are always thinking that 
they are going to do something grandly wicked to their 
enemies; but when it comes to the point, really bad men are 
just as rare as reaiiy good ones. 

Brassbound. You forget that I am like my uncle, according 
to you. Have you any doubt as to the reality of h i s badness ? 

Lady Cicely. Bless me! your uncle Howard is one of 
the most harmless of men — much nicer than most professional 
people. Of course he does dreadful things as a judge; but 
then if you take a man and pay him ;i£5,000 a year to be wicked, 
and praise him for it, and have policemen and courts and laws 
and juries to drive him into it so that he can't help doing it, 
what can you expect? Sir Howard's all right when he's left 
to himself. We caught a burglar one night at Waynflete 
when he was staying with us; and I insisted on his locking 
the poor man up, until the police came, in a room with a win- 
dow opening on the lawn. The man came back next day and 
said he must return to a life of crime unless I gave him a job 
in the garden; and I did. It was much more sensible than 
giving him ten years penal servitude: Howard admitted it. 
So you see he's not a bit bad really. 

Brassbound. He had a fellow feeling for a thief, knowing 
he was a thief himself. Do you forget that he sent my mother 
to prison? 

Lady Cicely (softly). Were you very fond of your poor 
mother, and always very good to her? 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 49 

Brassbound (rather taken aback). I was not worse than 
other sons, I suppose. 

Lady Cicely (opening her eyes very widely). Oh! Was 
that all ? 

Brassbound (exculpating himself, full of gloomy remem^ 
brances). You don't understand. It was not always possible 
to be very tender with my mother. She had unfortunately 
a very violent temper; and she — she 

Lady Cicely. Yes: so you told Howard. (With genuine 
pity for him) You must have had a very unhappy childhood. 

Brassbound (grimly). Hell. That was what my child- 
hood was. Hell. 

Lady Cicely. Do you think she would really have killed 
Howard, as she threatened, if he hadn't sent her to prison ? 

Brassbound (breaking out again, with a growing sense of 
being morally trapped). What if she did.^ Why did he rob 
her? Why did he not help her to get the estate, as he got it 
for himself afterguards ? 

Lady Cicely. He says he couldn't, you know. But per- 
haps the real reason was that he didn't like her. You know, 
don't you, that if you don't like people you think of all the 
reasons for not helping them, and if you like them you think 
of all the opposite reasons. 

Brassbound . But his duty as a brother ! 

Lady Cicely. Are you going to do your duty as a nephew ? 

Br.^ssbound. Don't quibble with me. I am going to do 
my duty as a son; and you know it. 

Lady Cicely. But I should have thought that the time 
for that was in your mother's lifetime, when you could have 
been kind and forbearing w ith her. Hurting your uncle won't 
do her any good, you know. 

Brassbound. It will teach other scoundrels to respect 
widows and orphans. Do you forget that there is such a 
thing as justice? 

Lady Cicely (gaily shaking out the finished coat). Oh, if 
you are going to dress yourself in ermine and call yourself 
Justice, I give you up. You are just your uncle over again; 



50 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

only he gets £5,000 a year for it, and you do it for nothing. 
(She holds the coat up to see whether any further repairs are 
needed) 

Brassbound {sulkily). You twist my words very cleverly. 
But no man or woman has ever changed me. 

Lady Cicely. Dear me! That must be very nice for the 
people you deal with, because they can always depend on 
you; but isn't it rather inconvenient for yourself when you 
change your mind ? 

Brassbound. I never change my mind. 

Lady Cicely (rising with the coat in her hands). Oh! Oh!! 
Nothing will ever persuade me that you are as pigheaded as 
that. 

Brassbound (offended). Pigheaded! 

Lady Cicely (ivith quick, caressing apology). No, no, no. 
I didn't mean that. Firm! Unalterable! Resolute! Iron- 
willed! Stonewall Jackson! That's the idea, isn't it.^ 

Brassbound (hopelessly). You are laughing at me. 

Lady Cicely. No: trembling, I assure you. Now will 
you try this on for me: I'm s o afraid I have made it too tight 
under the arm. (She holds it behind him.) 

Brassbound (obeying mechanically). You take me for a 
fool I think. (He jnisses the sleeve) 

Lady Cicely. No: all men look foolish when they are 
feeling for their sleeves 

Brassbound. Agh! (He turns and snatches the coat from 
her; then puts it on himself and buttons the lowest button.) 

Lady- Cicely- (horrified). Stop. No. You must never 
pull a coat at the skirts. Captain Brassbound: it spoils the 
sit of it. Allow me. (She pulls the lappels of his coat vigor- 
ously forward) Put back your shoulders. (He frowns, but 
obeys.) That's better. (She buttons the top button.) Now 
button the rest from the top down. Does it catch you at 
all under the arm? 

Brassbound (miserably — all resistance beaten out of him). 
No. 

Lady Cicely, That's right. Now before I go back to 



Act it Captain Brassbound's Conversion 51 

poor Marzo, say thank you to me for mending your jacket, 
like a nice polite sailor. 

Brassbound {sitting down at the table in great agitation). 
Damn you! you have belittled my whole life to me. {He 
bows his head on his hands, convulsed.) 

Lady Cicely {quite understanding, and putting her hand 
kindly on his shoulder). Oh no. I am sure you have done 
lots of kind things and brave things, if you could only recollect 
them. With Gordon for instance.'^ Nobody can belittle 
that. 

He looks up at her for a moment; then kisses her hand. 
She presses his and turns away with her eyes so wet that she 
sees Drinkivater, coming in through the arch just then, with 
a prismatic halo round him. Even when she sees him clearly ^ 
she hardly recognizes him; for he is ludicrously clean and 
smoothly brushed; and his hair, formerly mud color, is now 
a lively red. 

Drinkwater. Look eah, kepn. {Brassbound springs up 
and recovers himself quickly.) Eahs the bloomin Shike jest 
pppeahd on the orawzn wiv abaht fifty men. Thy'U be eah 
insawd o ten minnits, they will. 

Lady Cicely. The Sheikh! 

Brassbound. Sidi el Assif and fifty men! {To Lady 
Cicely) You were too late: I gave you up my vengeance 
when it was no longer in my hand. {To Drinkwater) Call 
all hands to stand by and shut the gates. Then all here to 
me for orders; and bring the prisoner. 

Drinkwater. Rawt, kepn. {He runs out.) 

Lady Cicely. Is there really any danger for Howard? 

Brassbound. Yes. Danger for all of us unless I keep to 
my bargain with this fanatic. 

Lady Cicely. What bargain? 

Brassbound. I pay him so much a head for every party 
I escort through to the interior. In return he protects me 
and lets my caravans alone. But I have sworn an oath to 
him to take only Jews and true believers — no Christians, you 
understand. 



52 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

Lady Cicely. Then why did you take us? 

Brassbound. I took my uncle on purpose — and sent 
word to Sidi that he was here. 

Lady Cicely. Well, that's a pretty kettle of fish, isn't it? 

Brassbound. I will do what I can to save him — and you. 
But I fear my repentance has come too late, as repentance 
usually does. 

Lady Cicely (cheerfully). Well, I must go and lock after 
Marzo, at all events. (She goes out through the little door. 
Johnson, Redhrook and the rest come in through the arch, 
with Sir Howard, still very crusty and determined. He keeps 
close to Johnson, icho comes to Brassbound's right, Redhrook 
taking the other side.) 

Brassbound. W^here's Drinkwater? 

Johnson. On the lookout. Look here, Capn: we dcn't 
half like this job. The gentleman has been talking to us a bit; 
and we think that he i s a gentleman, and talks straight sense. 

Redbrook. Righto, Brother Johnson. {To Brassbound) 
Won't do, governor. Not good enough. 

Brassbound (fiercehj). Mutiny, eh? 

Redbrook. Not at all, governor. Don't talk Tommy rot 
with Brother Sidi only five minutes gallop off. Can't hand 
over an Englishman to a nigger to have his throat cut. 

Brassbound (unexpectedly acquiescing). Very good. You 
know, I suppose, that if you break my bargain with Sidi, 
you'll have to defend this place and fight for your lives in 
five minutes. That can't be done without discipline; you 
know that too. I'll take my part with the rest under what- 
ever leader you are willing to obey. So choose your captain 
and look sharp about it. (Murmurs of surprise and discontent.) 

Voices. No, no. Brassbound must command. 

Brassbound. You're wasting your five minutes. Try 
Johnson. 

Johnson. No. I haven't the head for it. 

Brassbound. Well, Redbrook. 

Redbrook. Not this Johnny, thank you. Haven't char- 
acter enough. 



Act n Captain Brassbound's Conversion 53 

Brassbound. Well, there's Sir Howard Hallam for you! 
He has character enough. 

A Voice. He's too old. 

All. No, no. Brassbound, Brassbound. 

Johnson. There's nobody but you, Captain. 

Redbrook. The mutiny's over, governor. You win, 
hands down. 

Br.yssbound {turning on them). Now listen, you, all of 
you. If I am to command here, I am going to do what I like, 
not what you like. I'll give this gentleman here to Sidi or 
to the devil if I choose. I'll not be intimidated or talked 
back to. Is that understood.^ 

Redbrook (diplomaticaHy). He's offered a present of five 
hundred quid if he gets safe back to Mogador, governor. 
Excuse my mentioning it. 

Sir Howard. Myself and Lady Cicely. 

Brassbound. What! A judge compound a felony! You 
greenhorns, he is more likely to send you all to penal servi- 
tude if you are fools enough to give him the chance. 

Voices. So he would. Whew! {Murmurs of conviction.) 

Redbrook. Righto, governor. That's the ace of trumps. 

Brassbound {to Sir Howard). Now, have you any other 
card to play? Any other bribe? Any other threat? Quick. 
Time presses. 

Sir Howard. My life is in the hands of Providence. Do 
your worst. 

Brassbound. Or my best. I still have that choice. 

Drinkwater {running in). Look eah, kepn. Eah's 
anather lot cammin from the sahth heast. Hunnerds of em, 
this tawm. The owl dezzit is law^k a bloomin Awd Pawk 
demonstrition. Aw blieve it's the Kidy from Kintorfy. {Gen- 
eral alarm. All look to Brassbound.) 

Brassbound {eagerly) . The Cadi ! How far off ? 

Drinkwater. Matter o two mawl. 

Br.vssbound. W^e're saved. Open the gates to the Sheikh. 

Drinkwater {appalled, almost in tears). Naow, naow. 
Lissn, kepn {pointing to Sir Howard): e'll give huz fawv 



54 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

unnerd red uns. {To the others) Ynt yer spowk to im, 
Miste Jornsn — Miste Redbrook 

Brassbound (cutting him shoH). Now then, do you un- 
derstand plain English? Johnson and Redbrook: take 
what men you want and open the gates to the Sheikh. Let 
him come straight to me. Look alive, will you. 

Johnson. Ay ay, sir. 

Redbrook. Righto, governor. 

They hurry out, with a Jew others. Drinkwater stares 
after them, dumbfounded by their obedience. 

Brassbound (taking out a pistol). You wanted to sell me 
to my prisoner, did you, you dog. 

Drinkwater (falling on his knees loith a yell). Naow! 
(Brassbound turns on him as if to kick him. He scrambles 
away and takes refuge behind Sir Howard.) 

Brassbound. Sir Howard Hallam: you have one chance 
left. The Cadi of Kintafi stands superior to the Sheikh as 
the responsible governor of the whole province. It is the 
Cadi who will be sacrificed by the Sultan if England de- 
mands satisfaction for any injury to you. If we can hold the 
Sheikh in parley until the Cadi arrives, you may frighten the 
Cadi into forcing the Sheikh to release you. The Cadi's 
coming is a lucky chance for you. 

Sir Howard. If it were a real chance, you would not 
tell me of it. Don't try to play cat and mouse with me, man. 

Drinkwater (aside to Sir Howard, as Brassbound turns 
contemptuously away to the other side of the room). It ynt 
mach of a chawnst, Sr Ahrd. But if there was a ganbowt in 
Mogador Awbr, awd put a bit on it, aw would. 

Johnson, Redbrook, and the others return, rather mistrust- 
fidly ushering in Sidi el Assif, attended by Osman and a troop 
of Arabs. Brasshound's men keep together on the archway 
side, backing their captain. Sidi^s followers cross the room 
behind the table and assemble near Sir Howard, who stands 
his ground. Drinkwater runs across to Brassbound and 
stands at his elbow as he turns to face Sidi. 

Sidi el Assif, clad in spotless white, is a nobly handsome 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 55 

Araby hardly thirty, with fine eyes, bronzed complexion, and 
instinctively dignified carriage. He places himself between the 
two groups, with Osman in attendance at his right hand. 

OsMAN {pointing out Sir Howard). This is the infidel 
Cadi. (Sir Howard bows to Sidi, but, being an infidel, re- 
ceives only the haughtiest stare in acknowledgement.) This 
(pointing to Brassbound) is Brassbound the Franguestani 
captain, the servant of Sidi. 

Drinkwater (not to be outdone, points out the Sheikh and 
Osman to Brassbound). This eah is the Conunawnder of the 
Fythful an is Vizzeer Hosman. 

Sidi. Where is the woman? 

Osman. The shameless one is not here. 

Brassbound. Sidi el Assif, kinsman of the Prophet: you 
are welcome. 

Redbrook (with much aplomb). There is no majesty and 
no might save in Allah, the Glorious, the Great! 

Drinkwater. Eah, eah! 

Osman (to Sidi). The servant of the captain makes his 
profession of faith as a true believer. 

Sidi. It is well. 

Brassbound (aside to Redbrook). Where did you pick 
that up.^ 

Redbrook (aside to Brassbound). Captain Burton's Ara- 
bian Nights — copy in the Ubrary of the National Liberal Club. 

Lady Cicely (calling without). Mr. Drinkwater. Come 
and help me with Marzo. (The Sheikh pricks up his ears. 
His nostrils and eyes expand.) 

Osman. The shameless one! 

Brassbound (to Drinkwater, seizing him by the collar and 
slinging him towards the door). Off with you. 

Drinkwater goes out through the little door. 

Osman. Shall we hide her face before she enters? 

Sidi. No. 

Lady Cicely, who has resumed her travelling equipment, 
and has her hat slung across her arm, comes through the little 
door supporting Marzo, who is very white, but able to get 



S6 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

abovi. Drinkwater has his other arm. Redhrook hastens to 
relieve Lady Cicely of Marzo, taking him into the group be- 
hind Brassbound. Lady Cicely comes forward between Brass- 
bound and the Sheikh, to whom she turns affably. 

Lady Cicely (proffering her hand). Sidi el Assif, isn't it? 
How dye do? (He recoils, blushing somewhat.) 

OsMAN (scandalized). Woman; touch not the kinsman of 
the Prophet. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, I see. I'm being presented at court. 
Very good. (She makes a presentation curtsey.) 

Redbrook. Sidi el Assif: this is one of the mighty women 
Sheikhs of Franguestan. She goes unveiled among Kings; 
and only princes may touch her hand. 

Lady Cicely. Allah upon thee, Sidi el Assif! Be a good 
little Sheikh, and shake hands. 

Sidi (timidly touching her hand). Now this is a wonderful 
thing, and worthy to be chronicled with the story of Solo- 
mon and the Queen of Sheba. Is it not so, Osman Ali? 

OsMAN. Allah upon thee, master! it is so. 

Sidi. Brassbound Ali: the oath of a just man fulfils itself 
without many words. The infidel Cadi, thy captive, falls 
to my share. 

Brassbound (firmly). It cannot be, Sidi el Assif. (Sidi^s 
brows contract gravely.) The price of his blood will be re- 
quired of our lord the Sultan. I will take him to Morocco 
and deliver him up there. 

Sidi (impressively). Brassbound: I am in mine own house 
and amid mine own people. / am the Sultan here. Con- 
sider what you say; for when my word goes forth for life 
or death, it may not be recalled. 

Brassbound. Sidi el Assif: I will buy the man from you 
at what price you choose to name; and if I do not pay faith- 
fully, you shall take my head for his. 

Sidi. It is well. You shall keep the man, and give me 
the woman in payment. 

Sir Howard and Brassbound (with the same impulse). 
No, no. 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 57 

Lady Cicely (eagerly). Yes, yes. Certainly, Mr. Sidi. 
Certainly. 

Sidi smiles gravely. 

Sir Howard. Impossible. 

Brassbound. You don't know what you're doing. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, don't I ? I've not crossed Africa and 
stayed with six cannibal chiefs for nothing. (To the Sheikh) 
It's all right, Mr. Sidi: I shall be delighted. 

Sir Howard. You are mad. Do you suppose this man 
will treat you as a European gentleman would ? 

Lady Cicely. No: he'll treat me like one of Nature's 
gentlemen: look at his perfectly splendid face! (Addressing 
Osman as if he were her oldest and most attached retainer) 
Osman: be sure you choose me a good horse; and get a nice 
strong camel for my luggage. 

Osman, after a moment of stupefaction, hurries out. Lady 
Cicely puts on her hat and pins it to her hair, the Sheikh gazing 
at her during the process with timid admiration. 

Drinkwater (chuckling). She'll mawch em all to church 
next Sunder lawk a bloomin lot o' cherrity kids: you see if 
she down't. 

Lady Cicely (busily). Goodbye, Howard: don't be anx- 
ious about me; and above all, don't bring a parcel of men with 
guns to rescue me. I shall be all right now that I am getting 
away from the escort. Captain Brassbound : I rely on you to 
see that Sir Howard gets safe to Mogador. {Whispering) 
Take your hand off that pistol. (He takes his hand out of his 
pocket, reluctantly.) Goodbye. 

A tumult without. They all turn apprehensively to the 
arch. Osman rushes in. 

Osman. The Cadi, the Cadi. He is in anger. His men 
are upon us. Defend 

The Cadi, a vigorous, fatfeatured, choleric, whitehaired 
and bearded elder, rushes in, cudgel in hand, with an over- 
whelming retinue, and silences Osman with a sounding 
thwack. In a moment the back of the room is crowded with 
his followers. The Sheikh retreats a little towards his men; 



58 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act II 

and the Cadi comes impetiumsly forward between him and 
Lady Cicely. 

The Cadi. Now woe upon thee, Sidi el Assif, thou child 
of mischief! 

Sidi (sternly). Am I a dog, Muley Othman, that thou 
speak est thus to me? 

The Cadi. Wilt thou destroy thy country, and give us 
all into the hands of them that set the sea on fire but yesterday 
with their ships of war ? Where are the Franguestani captives ? 

Lady Cicely. Here we are. Cadi. How dye do ? 

The Cadi. Allah upon thee, thou moon at the full! 
Where is thy kinsman, the Cadi of Franguestan .? I am his 
friend, his servant. I come on behalf of my master the 
Sultan to do him honor, and to cast down his enemies. 

Sir Howard. You are very good, I am sure. 

Sidi (graver than ever). Muley Othman 

The Cadi (fumbling in his breast). Peace, peace, thou 
inconsiderate one. (He takes out a letter.) 

Brassbound. Cadi 

The Cadi. Oh thou dog, thou, thou accursed Brassbound, 
son of a wanton : it is thou hast led Sidi el Assif into this wrong- 
doing. Read this writing that thou hast brought upon me 
from the commander of the warship. 

Brassbound. Warship! (He takes the letter and opens it, 
his men whispering to one another very low-spiritedly mean- 
while.) 

Redbrook. Warship! Whew! 

Johnson. Gunboat, praps. 

Drinkwater. Lawk bloomin Worterleoo buses, they are, 
on this cowst. 

Brassbound folds up the letter, looking glum. 

Sir Howard (sharply). Well, sir, are we not to have the 
benefit of that letter.? Your men are waiting to hear it, I 
think. 

Brassbound. It is not a British ship. (Sir Howard*s 
face falls.) 

Lady Cicely. What is it, then? 



Act II Captain Brassbound's Conversion 59 

Brassbound, An American cruiser. The Santiago, 

The Cadi (tearing his beard). Woe! alas! it is where they 
set the sea on fire. 

SiDi. Peace, Muley Othman: Allah is still above us. 

Johnson. Would you mind readin it to us, capn? 

Brassbound (grimly). Oh, I'll read it to you. " Mogador 
Harbor. 26 Sept. 1899. Captain Hamlin 'Kearney, of the 
cruiser Santiago, presents the compliments of the United 
States to the Cadi Muley Othman el Kintafi, and announces 
that he is coming to look for the two British travellers Sir 
Howard Hallam and Lady Cicely Waynflete, in the Cadi's 
jurisdiction. As the search will be conducted with machine 
guns, the prompt return of the travellers to Mogador Harbor 
will save much trouble ic all parties." 

The Cadi. As I live, O Cadi, and thou, moon of loveli- 
ness, ye shall be led back to Mogador with honor. And thou, 
accursed Brassbound, shalt go thither a prisoner in chains, 
thou and thy people. (Brassbound and his men make a move- 
ment to defend themselves^ Seize them. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, please don't fight. (Brassbound, seeing 
that his men are hopelessly outnumbered, makes no resistance. 
They are made prisoners by the Cadis followers.) 

SiDi (attempting to draiv his scimitar) . The woman is mine : 
I will not forego her. (He is seized and overpowered after a 
Homeric struggle.) 

Sir Howard (drily). I told you you were not in a strong 
position. Captain Brassbound. (Looking implacably at him) 
You are laid by the heels, my friend, as I said you would be. 

Lady Cicely. But I assure you 

Brassbound (interrupting her). What have you to assure 
him of ? You persuaded me to spare him. Look at his face. 
Will you be able to persuade him to spare me? 

END OF ACT n. 



ACTin 

Torrid forenoon filtered through small Moorish windows 
high up in the adobe walls of the largest room in Leslie Rankings 
hou^e. A clean cool room, with the table (a Christian article) 
set in the middle, a presidentialbj elbowed chair behind it, and 
an inkstand and paper ready for the sitter. A couple of cheap 
American chairs right and left of the table, facing the same way 
as the presidential chair, give a judicial aspect to the arrange- 
ment. Rank-in is placing a little tray with a jug and some 
glasses near the inkstand when Lady Cicely's voice is heard at 
the door, which is behind him in the corner to his right. 

Lady Cicely. Good morning. May I come in? 

Rankin. Certainly. (She comes in to the nearest end of 
the table. She has discarded all travelling equipment, and is 
dressed exactly as she might be in Surrey on a very hot day.) 
Sit ye doon, Leddy Ceecily. 

Lady Cicely (sitting down). How nice you've made the 
room for the inquiry ! 

Rankin (doubtfully). I could wish there were more chairs. 
Yon American captain will preside in this; and that leaves 
but one for Sir Howrrd and one for your leddyship. I could 
almost be tempted to call it a maircy that your friend that owns 
the yacht has sprained his ankle and cannot come. I mis- 
doubt me it will not look judeecial to have Captain Kearney's 
officers squatting on the floor. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, they won't mind. What about the 
prisoners ? 

Rankin. They are to be broat here from the town gaol 
presently. 

Lady Cicely. And where is that silly old Cadi, and my 
handsome Sheikh Sidi ? I must see them before the inquiry, 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 61 

or they'll give Captain Kearney quite a false impression of 
what happened. 

Rankin. But ye cannot see them. They decamped last 
night, back to their castles in the Atlas. 

Lady Cicely (delighted). No! 

Rankin. Indeed and they did. The poor Cadi is so 
tarrified by all he has haird of the destruction of the Spanish 
fleet, that he daren't trust himself in the captain's hands. 
(Looking reproachfully at her) On your journey back here, 
ye seem to have frightened the poor man yourself, Leddy 
Ceecily, by talking to him about the fanatical Chreestianity of 
the Americans. Ye have largely yourself to thank if he's gone. 

Lady Cicely. Allah be praised! W h a t a weight off our 
minds, Mr. Rankin! 

Rankin (puzzled). And why? Do ye not understand 
how necessary their evidence is? 

Lady Cicely. Their evidence! It would spoil every- 
thing. They would perjure themselves out of pure spite 
against poor Captain Brassbound. 

Rankin (amazed). Do ye call him poor Captain Brass- 
bound! Does not your leddyship know that this Brassbound 
is — Heaven forgive me for judging him! — a precious scoun- 
drel ? Did ye not hear what Sir Howrrd told me on the yacht 
last night? 

Lady Cicely. All a mistake, Mr. Rankin: all a mistake, 
I assure you. You said just now, Heaven forgive you for 
judging him! Well, that's just what the whole quarrel is 
about. Captain Brassbound is just like you: he thinks we 
have no right to judge one another; and as Sir Howard gets 
£5,000 a year for doing nothing else but judging people, he 
thinks poor Captain Brassbound a regular Anarchist. They 
quarreled dreadfully at the castle. You mustn't mind what 
Sir Howard says about him: you really mustn't. 

Rankin. But his conduct 

Lady Cicely. Perfectly saintly, Mr. Rankin. Worthy of 
yourself in your best moments. He forgave Sir Howard, 
and did all he could to save him. 



62 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Rankin. Ye astoanish me, Leddy Ceecily. 

Lady Cicely. And think of the temptation to behave 
badly when he had us all there helpless! 

Rankin. The temptation! ay: that's true. Ye're ower 
bonny to be cast away among a parcel o lone, lawless men, 
my leddy. 

Lady Cicely (naively). Bless me, that's quite true; and I 
never thought of it! Oh, after that you really must do all 
you can to help Captain Brassbound. 

Rankin (reservedly). No: I cannot say that, Leddy 
Ceecily. I doubt he has imposed on your good nature and 
sweet disposeetion. I had a crack with the Cadi as well as 
with Sir Howrrd; and there is little question in my mind but 
that Captain Brassbound is no better than a breegand. 

Lady Cicely (apparently deeply impressed). I wonder 
whether he can be, Mr. Rankin. If you think so, that's 
heavily against him in my opinion, because you have more 
knowledge of men than anyone else here. Perhaps I'm mis- 
taken. I only thought you might like to help him as the son 
of your old friend. 

Rankin (startled). The son of my old friend! What 
d'ye mean ? 

Lady Cicely. Oh! Didn't Sir Howard tell you that.? 
Why, Captain Brassbound turns out to be Sir Howard's 
nephew, the son of the brother you knew. 

Rankin (overwhelmed). I saw the likeness the night he 
came here! It's true : it's true. Uncle and nephew ! 

Lady Cicely. Yes: that's why they quarrelled so. 

Rankin (with a momentary sense of ill usage). I think 
Sir Howrrd might have told me that. 

Lady Cicely. Of course he ought to have told you. 
You see he only tells one side of the story. That comes 
from his training as a barrister. You mustn't think he's 
naturally deceitful: if he'd been brought up as a clergyman, 
he'd have told you the whole truth as a matter of course. 

Rankin (too much perturbed to dwell on his grievance). 
Leddy Ceecily: I must go to the prison and see the lad. He 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 63 

may have been a bit wild; but I can't leave poor Miles 's son 
unbefriended in a foreign gaol. 

Lady Cicely (rising, radiant). Oh, how good of you! 
You have a real kind heart of gold, Mr. Rankin. Now, be- 
fore you go, shall we just put our heads together, and con- 
sider how to give Miles 's son every chance — I mean of course 
every chance that he ought to have. 

Rankin (rather addled). I am so confused by this astoan- 
ishing news 

Lady Cicely. Yes, yes: of course you are. But don't 
you think he would make a better impression on the American 
captain if he were a little more respectably dressed.'^ 

Rankin. Mebbe. But how can that be remedied here in 
Mogador ? 

Lady Cicely. Oh, I've thought of that. You know I'm 
going back to England by way of Rome, Mr. Rankin; and 
I'm bringing a portmanteau full of clothes for my brother 
there: he's ambassador, you know, and has to be very 
particular as to what he wears. I had the portmanteau 
brought here this morning. Now would you mind taking 
it to the prison, and smartening up Captain Brassbound a 
little. Tell him he ought to do it to shew his respect for 
me; and he will. It will be quite easy: there are two Kroo- 
boys waiting to carry the portmanteau. You will: I know 
you will. (She edges him to the door.) And do you think 
there is time to get him shaved? 

Rankin (succumbing, half heioildered) . I'll do my best. 

Lady Cicely. I know you will. (As he is going out) 
Oh! one word, Mr. Rankin. (He comes back.) The Cadi 
didn't know that Captain Brassbound was Sir Howard's 
nephew, did he? 

Rankin. No. 

Lady Cicely. Then he must have misunderstood every- 
thing quite dreadfully. I'm afraid, Mr. Rankin — though 
you know best, of course — that we are bound not to repeat 
anything at the inquiry that the Cadi said. He didn't know, 
you see. 



64 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Rankin (cannily). I take your point, Leddy Ceecily. It 
alters the case. I shall certainly make no allusion to it. 

Lady Cicely (magnanimously) . Well, then, I won't either. 
There! 

They shake hands on it. Sir Howard comes in. 

Sir Howard. Good morning, Mr. Rankin. I hope you 
got home safely from the yacht last night. 

Rankin. Quite safe, thank ye, Sir Howrrd. 

Lady Cicely. Howard, he's in a hurry. Don't make 
him stop to talk. 

Sir Howard. Very good, very good. (He comes to the 
table and takes Lady Cicely's chair.) 

Rankin. Oo revoir, Leddy Ceecily. 

Lady Cicely. Bless you, Mr. Rankin. (Rankin goes out. 
She comes to the other end of the table, looking at Sir Howard 
with a troubled, sorrowjully sympathetic air, but unconsciously 
making her right hand stalk about the table on the tips of its 
fingers in a tentative stealthy way which icould put Sir Howard 
on his guard if he were in a suspicious frame of mind, which, 
as it happens, he is not.) I'm so sorry for you, Howard, 
about this unfortunate inquiry. 

Sir Howard (swinging round on his chair, astonished). 
Sorry for me! Why? 

Lady Cicely. It will look so dreadful. Your own 
nephew, you know. 

Sir Howard. Cicely: an English judge has no nephews, 
no sons even, when he has to carry out the law. 

Lady Cicely. But then he oughtn't to have any property 
either. People will never understand about the West Indian 
Estate. They'll think you're the wicked uncle out of the 
Babes in the Wood. (With a fresh gush of compassion) I'm 
so s o sorry for you. 

Sir Howard (rather stiffly). I really do not see how I 
need your commiseration. Cicely. The woman was an im- 
possible person, half mad, half drunk. Do you understand 
what such a creature is when she has a grievance, and imagines 
some innocent person to be the author of it? 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 65 

Lady Cicely {with a touch of impatience). Oh, quite. 
That'll be made clear enough. I can see it all in the pa- 
pers already: our half mad, half drunk sister-in-law, making 
scenes with you in the street, with the police called in, and 
prison and all the rest of it. The family will be furious. 
(Sir Howard quails. She instantly follows up her advantage 
icith) Think of papa! 

Sir Howard. I shall expect Lord Waynflete to look at 
the matter as a reasonable man. 

Lady Cicely. Do you think he's so greatly changed as 
that, Howard? 

Sir Howard {falling hack on the fatalism of the deperson- 
alized public man). My dear Cicely : there is no use discussing 
the matter. It cannot be helped, however disagreeable it 
may be. 

Lady Cicely. Of course not. That's what's so dreadful. 
Do you think people will understand.^ 

Sir Howard. I really cannot say. Whether they do or 
not, / cannot help it. 

Lady Cicely. If you were anybody but a judge, it 
wouldn't matter so much. But a judge mustn't even be 
misunderstood. {Despairingly) Oh, it's dreadful, Howard: 
it's terrible! What would poor Mary say if she were aHve 
now.? 

Sir Howard {ivith emotion). I don't think, Cicely, that 
my dear wife would misunderstand me. 

Lady Cicely. No: she'd know you mean well. And 
when you came home and said, "Mary: I've just told all 
the world that your sister-in-law was a police court criminal, 
and that I sent her to prison; and your nephew is a brigand, 
and I'm sending h i m to prison," she'd have thought it 
must be all right because you did it. But you don't think she 
would have liked it, any more than papa and the rest of 
us, do you? 

Sir Howard {appalled). But what am I to do? Do you 
ask me to compound a felony ? 

Lady Cicely {sternly). Certainly not. I would not allow 



66 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

such a thing, even if you were wicked enough to attempt 
it. No. What I say is, that you ought not to tell the story 
yourself. 

Sir Howard. Why? 

Laby Cicely. Because everybody would say you are such 
a clever laTvyer you could make a poor simple sailor like 
Captain Kearney believe anything. The proper thing for 
you to do, Howard, is to let m e tell the exact truth. Then 
you can simply say that you are bound to confirm me. No- 
body can blame you for that. 

Sir Howard {looking suspiciously at her). Cicely: you are 
up to some devilment. 

Lady' Cicely (promptly washing her hands of his interests). 
Oh, very well. Tell the story yourself, in your own clever 
way. I only proposed to tell the exact truth. You call that 
devilment. So it is, I daresay, from a law7er's point of view. 

Sir Howard. I hope you're not offended. 

Lady Cicely (with the utmost goodhumor). My dear 
Howard, not a bit. Of course you're right: you know how 
these things ought to be done. I'll do exactly what you tell 
me, and confirm everything you say. 

Sir Howard (alarmed by the completeness of his victory). 
Oh, my dear, you mustn't act in my interest. You must 
give your evidence with absolute impartiality. (She nodsy 
as if tlwroughly impressed and reproved, and gazes at him with 
the steadfast candor peculiar to liars who read novels. His 
eyes turn to the ground; and his brow clouds perplexedly. He 
rises; rubs his chin nervously with his forefinger; and adds) 
I think, perhaps, on reflection, that there is something to be 
said for your proposal to relieve me of the very painful duty 
of telling what has occurred. 

Lady Cicely (holding off). But you'd do it so very much 
better. 

Sir Howard. For that very reason, perhaps, it had better 
come from you. 

Lady Cicely (reluctantly). Well, if you'd rather. 

Sir How^^rd. But mind, Cicely, the exact truth. 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 67 

Lady Cicely (icith conviction). The exact truth. (They 
shake hands on it.) 

Sir Howard (holding her hand). Fiat justltia: mat 
coelum! 

Lady Cicely. Let Justice be done, though the ceiUng 
fall. 

An American bluejacket appears at the door. 

Bluejacket. Captain Kearney's cawmpliments to Lady 
Waynflete; and may he come in.^ 

Lady Cicely. Yes. By all means. Where are the 
prisoners ? 

Bluejacket. Party gawn to the jail to fetch em, marm. 

Lady Cicely. Thank you. I should like to be told when 
they are coming, if I might. 

Bluejacket. You shall so, marm. (He stands aside, 
saluting, to admit his captain, and goes out.) 

Captain Hamlin Kearney is a robustly built western Ameri- 
can, with the keen, squeezed, wind beaten eyes and obstinately 
enduring mouth of his profession. A curious ethnological spec- 
imen, ivith all the nations of the old world at war in his veins, 
he is developing aiiificially in the direction of sleekness and 
cidture under the restraints of an overwhelming dread of Euro- 
pean criticism, and climatically in the direction of the indigenous 
North American, who is already in possession of his hair, his 
cheekbones, and the manlier instincts in him which the sea has 
rescued from civilization. The world, pondering on the great 
part of its own fidure ichich is in his hands, contemplates him 
with iconder as to what the devil he will evolve into in another 
century or two. Meanwhile he presents himself to Lady 
Cicely as a blunt sailor ivho has something to say to her con- 
cerning her conduct which he icishes to put politely, as becomes 
an officer addressing a lady, bid also ivith an empJiaticaUy 
implied rebuke, as an American addressing an English person 
who has taken a liberty. 

Lady Cicely (as he enters). So glad you've come, Captain 
Kearney. 

Kearney {coming between Sir Howard and Lady Cicely). 



68 Captain Brassbound's Conv^ersion Act III 

When we parted yesterday ahfternoon, Lady Waynflete, I 
was unaware that in the course of your visit to my ship you 
had entirely altered the sleeping arrangements of my stokers. 
I thahnk you. As captain of the ship, I am customairily 
cawnsulted before the orders of English visitors are carried 
out; but as your alterations appear to cawndooce to the com- 
fort of the men, I have not interfered with them. 

Lady Cicely. How clever of you to find out! I believe 
you know every bolt in that ship. 

Kearney sojtens perceptibly. 

Sir Howard. I am really very sorry that my sister-in-law 
has taken so serious a liberty, Captain Kearney. It is a mania 
of hers — simply a mania. Why did your men pay any atten- 
tion to her.? 

Kearney {with gravely dissembled humor). Well, I ahsked 
that question too. I said, Why did you obey that lady's 
orders instead of waiting for mine? They said they didn't 
see exactly how they could refuse. I ahsked whether they 
cawnsidered that discipline. They said, Well, sir, will you 
talk to the lady yourself next time ? 

Lady Cicely. I'm so sorry. But you know, Captain, the 
one thing that one misses on board a man-of-war is a woman. 

Kearney. We often feel that deprivation verry keenly. 
Lady Waynflete. 

Lady Cicely. My uncle is first Lord of the Admiralty; 
and I am always telling him what a scandal it is that an Eng- 
lish captain should be forbidden to take his wife on board to 
look after the ship. 

Kearney. Stranger still, Lady Waynflete, he is not for- 
bidden to take any other lady. Yours is an extraordinairy 
country — to an Amerrican. 

Lady Cicely. But it's most serious, Captain. The poor 
men go melancholy mad, and ram each other's ships and 
do all sorts of things. 

Sir Howard. Cicely: I beg you will not talk nonsense 
to Captain Kearney. Your ideas on some subjects are really 
hardly decorous. 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 69 

Lady Cicely {to Kearney). That's what English people 
are like, Captain Kearney. They won't hear of anything 
concerning you poor sailors except Nelson and Trafalgar. 
You understand me, don't you ? 

Kearney (gallantly). I cawnsider that you have more 
sense in your wedding ring finger than the British Ahdmiralty 
has in its whole cawnstitootion. Lady Waynflete. 

Lady Cicely. Of course I have. Sailors always under- 
stand things. 

The bluejacket reappears. 

Bluejacket (to Lady Cicely). Prisoners coming up the 
hill, marm. 

Kearney (turning sharply on him). Who sent you in to 
say that? 

Bluejacket (calmly). British lady's orders, sir. (He 
goes out, unruffled, leaving Kearney dumbfounded^ 

Sir Howard (contemplating Kearney's expression with 
dismay). I am really very sorry, Captain Kearney. I am 
quite aware that Lady Cicely has no right whatever to give 
orders to your men. 

Lady Cicely. I didn't give orders: I just asked him. 
He has such a nice face! Don't you think so, Captain 
Kearney? (He gasps, speechless.) And now will you excuse 
me a moment. I want to speak to somebody before the 
inquiry begins. (She hurries oid.) 

Kearney. There is sertnly a wonderful chahm about the 
British aristocracy. Sir Howard Hallam. Are they all like 
that? (He takes the presidential chair.) 

Sir Howard (resuming his seat on Kearney's right). 
Fortunately not, Captain Kearney. Half a dozen such 
women would make an end of law in England in six 
months. 

The bluejacket comes to the door again. 

Bluejacket. All ready, sir. 

Kearney. Verry good. I'm waiting. 

The bluejacket turns and intimates this a those without. 
The officers of the Santiago enter. 



70 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Sir Howard (rising and bobbing to them in a judicial man- 
ner). Good morning, gentlemen. 

Theij acknowledge the greeting rather shyly, bowing or 
touching their caps, and stand in a group behind Kearney. 

Kearney (to Sir Howard). You will be glahd to hear 
that I have a verry good account of one of our prisoners from 
our chahplain, who visited them in the gaol. He has ex- 
pressed a wish to be cawnverted to Episcopalianism. 

Sir Howard (drily). Yes, I think I know him. 

Kearney. Bring in the prisoners. 

Bluejacket (at the door). They are engaged with the 
British lady, sir. Shall I ask her 

Kearney (jumping up and exploding in storm piercing 
tones). Bring in the prisoners. Tell the lady those are my 
orders. Do you hear? Tell her so. (The bluejacket goes 
out dubiously. The officers look at one another m mute com- 
ment on the unaccountable pepperiness of their commander.) 

Sir Howard (suavely). Mr. Rankin will be present, I 
presume. 

Kearney (angrily). Rahnkin! Who is Rahnkin? 

Sir Howard. Our host the missionary. 

Kearney (subsiding unwillingly). Oh! Rahnkin, is he? 
He'd better look sharp or he'll be late. (Again exploding.) 
What are they doing with those prisoners? 

Rankin hurries in, and takes his place near Sir Howard. 

Sir Howard. This is Mr. Rankin, Captain Kearney. 

Rankin. Excuse my delay. Captain Kearney. The leddy 
sent me on an errand. (Kearney grunts.) I thoaght I should 
be late. But the first thing I heard when I arrived was your 
officer giving your compliments to Leddy Ceecily, and would 
she kindly allow the prisoners to come in, as you were anxious 
to see her again. Then I knew I was in time. 

Kearney. Oh, that was it, was it? May I ask, sir, did 
you notice any sign on Lady Waynflete's part of cawmplying 
with that verry moderate request? 

Lady Cicely (outside). Coming, coming. 

The prisoners are brought in by a guard of armed bluejackets. 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 71 

Drinkwater first, again elaborately clean, and conveying by a 
virttious and steadfast smirk a cheerful confidence in his inno- 
cence. Johnson solid and inexpressive, Redbrook unconcerned 
and debonair, Marzo uneasy. These four form a little group to- 
gether on the captain's left. The rest wait unintelligently on 
Providence in a row against the wall on the same side, shep- 
herded by the bluejackets. The first bluejacket, a petty officer, 
posts himself on the captain's right, behind Rankin and Sir 
Howard. Finally Brassbound appears ivith Lady Cicely on 
his arm. He is in fashionable frock coat and troupers, spotless 
collar and cuffs, and elegant boots. He carries a glossy tall 
hat in his hand. To an unsophisticated eye, the change is 
monstrous and appalling; and its effect on himself is so un- 
manning that he is quite out of countenance — a shaven Samson. 
Lady Cicely, however, is greatly pleased with it; and the rest 
regard it as an unquestionable improvement. The officers fall 
back gallantly to allow her to pass. Kearney rises to receive her, 
and stares with some surprise at Brassbound as she stops at 
the table on his left. Sir Howard rises punctiliously when 
Kearney rises and sits when he sits. 

Kearney. Is this another gentleman of your party, Lady 
Waynflete? I presume I met you lahst night, sir, on board 
the yacht. 

Brassbound. No. I am your prisoner. My name is 
Brassbound. 

Drinkwater (officiously). Kepn Brarsbahnd, of the 
schooner Thenksgiv 

Redbrook (hastily). Shut up, you fool. (He elbows 
Drinkwater into the background.) 

Kearney (surprised and rather su^piciou^). Well, I hardly 
understahnd this. However, if you are Captain Brassbound, 
you can take your place with the rest. (Brassbound joins 
Redbrook and Johnson. Kearney sits down again, after in- 
viting Lady Cicely, with a solemn gesture, to take the vacant 
chair.) Now let me see. You are a man of experience in these 
matters. Sir Howard Hallam. If you had to conduct this 
business, how would you start? 



72 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Lady Cicely. He'd call on the counsel for the prosecu- 
tion, wouldn't you, Howard? 

Sir Howard. But there is no counsel for the prosecution. 
Cicely. 

Lady Cicely. Oh yes there is. I'm counsel for the 
prosecution. You mustn't let Sir Howard make a speech. 
Captain Kearney: his doctors have positively forbidden any- 
thing of that sort. Will you begin with me ? 

Kearney. By your leave, Lady Waynflete, I think I will 
just begin with myself. Sailor fashion will do as well here as 
lawyer fashion. 

Lady Cicely. Ever so much better, dear Captain 
Kearney. {Silence. Kearney composes himself to speak. She 
breaks out again) You look so nice as a judge! 

A general smile. Drinkwater splutters into a half sup- 
pressed laugh. 

Rederook {in a fierce whisper). Shut up, you fool, will 
you ? {Again he pushes him back with a furtive kick.) 

Sir Howard {remonstrating). Cicely! 

Kearney {grimly keeping his countenance). Your lady- 
ship's cawmpliments will be in order at a later stage. Captain 
Brassbound: the position is this. My ship, the United States 
cruiser Santiago, was spoken off Mogador lahst Thursday by 
the yacht Redgauntlet. The owner of the aforesaid yacht, 
who is not present through having sprained his ahnkle, gave 
me sertn inforrhation. In cawnsequence of that information 
the Santiago made the twenty knots to Mogador Harbor inside 
of fifty-seven minutes. Before noon next day a messenger of 
mine gave the Cadi of the district sertn information. In 
cawnsequence of that information the Cadi stimulated him- 
self to some ten knots an hour, and lodged you and your men 
in Mogador jail at my disposal. The Cadi then went back 
to his mountain fahstnesses; so we shall not have the pleasure 
of his company here to-day. Do you follow me so far ? 

Brassbound. Yes. I know what you did and what the 
Cadi did. The point is, why did you do it? 

Kearney. With doo patience we shall come to that 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 73 

presently. Mr. Rahnkin : will you kindly take up the par- 
able? 

Rankin. On the very day that Sir Howrrd and Lady 
Cicely started on their excursion I was applied to for medi- 
cine by a follower of the Sheikh Sidi el Assif. He told me I 
should never see Sir Howrrd again, because his master knew 
he was a Christian and would take him out of the hands of 
Captain Brassbound. I hurried on board the yacht and told 
the owner to scour the coast for a gunboat or cruiser to come 
into the harbor and put persuasion on the authorities. (Sir 
Howard turns and looks at Rankin with a sudden doubt of his 
integrity as a witness.) 

Kearney. But I understood from our chahplain that you 
reported Captain Brassbound as in league with the Sheikh 
to deliver Sir Howard up to him. 

Rankin. That was my first hasty conclusion, Captain 
Kearney. But it appears that the compact between them 
was that Captain Brassbound should escort travellers under 
the Sheikh's protection at a certain payment per head, pro- 
vided none of them were Christians. As I understand it, 
he tried to smuggle Sir Howrrd through under this com- 
pact, and the Sheikh found him out. 

Drinkwater. Rawt,gavner. Thet's jestahitwors. The 
Kepn 

Redbrook (again suppressing him). Shut up, you fool, I 
tell you. 

Sir Howard (to Rankin). May I ask have you had any 
conversation with Lady Cicely on this subject? 

Rankin (naively). Yes. (Sir Howard grunts emphati- 
cally, as wlco should say "7 thought so." Rankin continues, 
addressing the court) May I say how sorry I am that there 
are so few chairs, Captain and gentlemen. 

Kearney (with genial American courtesy). Oh, that's 
all right, Mr. Rahnkin. Well, I see no harm so far : it's human 
fa wily, but not human crime. Now the counsel for the prose- 
cution can proceed to prosecute. The floor is yours, Lady 
Waynflete. 



74 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Lady Cicely (rising). I can only tell you the exact 
truth 

Drinkwater (involuntarily). Naow, down't do thet, 
lidy 

Redbrook (as before). Shut up, you fool, will you? 

Lady Cicely. We had a most delightful trip in the hills; 
and Captain Brassbound's men could not have been nicer — 
I must say that for them — until we saw a tribe of Arabs — 
such nice looking men! — and then the poor things were 
frightened. 

Kearney. The Arabs .^ 

Lady Cicely. No: Arabs are never frightened. The es- 
cort, of course: escorts are always frightened. I wanted to 
speak to the Arab chief; but Captain Brassbound cruelly 
shot his horse; and the chief shot the Count; and then 

Kearney. The Count! What Count.? 

Lady Cicely. Marzo. That's Marzo (pointing to Marzo, 
who grins and touches his forehead). 

Kearney (slightly overwhelmed by the unexpected profu- 
sion of incident and character in her story). Well, what hap- 
pened then? 

Lady Cicely. Then the escort ran away — all escorts 
do — and dragged me into the castle, which you really ought 
to make them clean and whitewash thoroughly, Captain 
Kearney. Then Captain Brassbound and Sir Howard 
turned out to be related to one another (sensation); and 
then of course, there was a quarrel. The Hallams always 
quarrel. 

Sir Howard (rising to protest). Cicely! Captain Kearney: 
this man told me 

Lady Cicely (swiftly interrupting him). You mustn't say 
what people told you : it's not evidence. (Sir Howard chokes 
with indignation.) 

Kearney (calmly) . Allow the lady to pro-ceed, Sir Howard 
Hallam. 

Sir Howard (recovering his self-control with a gulp, and 
resuming his seat). I beg your pardon, Captain Kearney. 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 75 

Lady Cicely. Then Sidi came. 

Kearney. Sidney! Who was Sidney? 

Lady Cicely. No, Sidi. The Sheikh. Sidi el Assif. A 
noble creature, with such a fine face! He fell in love with 
me at first sight 

Sir Howard (remonstrating). Cicely! 

Lady Cicely. He did: you know he did. You told me 
to tell the exact truth. 

Kearney. I can readily believe it, madam. Proceed. 

Lady Cicely. Well, that put the poor fellow into a most 
cruel dilemma. You see, he could claim to carry off Sir 
Howard, because Sir Howard is a Christian. But as I am 
only a woman, he had no claim to me. 

Kearney (somewhat sternly, suspecting Lady Cicely of 
aristocratic atheism). But you are a Christian woman. 

Lady Cicely. No: the Arabs don't count women. They 
don't believe we have any souls. 

Rankin. That is true, Captain: the poor benighted 
creatures! 

Lady Cicely. Well, what was he to do? He wasn't in 
love with Sir Howard; and he w a s in love with me. So he 
naturally offered to swop Sir Howard for me. Don't you 
think that was nice of him, Captain Kearney? 

Kearney. I should have done the same myself. Lady 
Waynflete. Proceed. 

Lady Cicely. Captain Brassbound, I must say, was 
nobleness itself, in spite of the quarrel between himself and 
Sir Howard. He refused to give up either of us, and was on 
the point of fighting for us when in came the Cadi with your 
most amusing and delightful letter, captain, and bundled us 
all back to Mogador after calling my poor Sidi the most 
dreadful names, and putting all the blame on Captain Brass- 
bound. So here we are. Now, Howard, isn't that the exact 
truth, every word of it? 

Sir How^ard. It is the truth. Cicely, and nothing but the 
truth. But the EngUsh law requires a witness to tell the 
whole truth. 



76 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Lady Cicely. What nonsense! As if anybody ever knew 
the whole truth about anything! (Sitting down, much hurt 
and discouraged.) I'm sorry you wish Captain Kearney to 
understand that I am an untruthful witness. 

Sir Howard. No: but 

Lady Cicely. Very well, then: please don't say things 
that convey that impression. 

Kearney. But Sir Howard told me yesterday that Cap- 
tain Brassbound threatened to sell him into slavery. 

Lady Cicely (springing up again). Did Sir Howard tell 
you the things he said about Captain Brassbound's mother? 
(Renewed sensation.) I told you they quarrelled, Captain 
Kearney. I said so, didn't I? 

Redbrook (crisply). Distinctly. (Drinkwater opens his 
mouth to corroborate.) Shut up, you fool. 

Lady Cicely. Of course I did. Now, Captain Kearney, 
do y o u want me — does Sir Howard want me — does any- 
body want me to go into the details of that shocking 
family quarrel ? Am I to stand here in the absence of any 
individual of my own sex and repeat the language of two 
angry men? 

Kearney (rising impressively). The United States na\'y 
will have no hahnd in offering any violence to the pure in- 
stincts of womanhood. Lady Waynflete: I thahnk you for 
the delicacy with which you have given your evidence. (Lady 
Cicely beams on him gratefully and sits down triumphant.) 
Captain Brassbound: I shall not hold you respawnsible for 
what you may have said when the English bench addressed 
you in the language of the English forecastle — (Sir Howard 
is about to protest.) No, Sir Hovv^ard Hallam: excuse me. 
In moments of pahssion I have called a man that myself. 
We are glahd to find real flesh and blood beneath the ermine 
of the judge. We will all now drop a subject that should 
never have been broached in a lady's presence. (He resumes 
his seat, and adds, in a businesslike tone) Is there anything 
further before we release these men? 

Bluejacket. There are some dawcuments handed over 



Act in Captain Brassbound's Conversion 77 

by the Cadi, sir. He reckoned they were sort of magic spells. 
The chahplain ordered them to be reported to you and burnt, 
with your leave, sir. 

Kearney. What are they? 

Bluejacket (reading from a list). Four books, torn and 
dirty, made up of separate numbers, value each wawn penny, 
and entitled Sweeny Todd, the Demon Barber of London; 
The Skeleton Horseman 

Drinkwater {rushing forivard in painful alarm and anx- 
iety). It's maw lawbrary, gavner. Down't burn em. 

Kearney. You'll be better without that sort of reading, 
my man. 

Drinkwater (in intense distress, appealing to Lady Cicely). 
Down't let em burn em, lidy. They dassen't if you border em 
not to. (With desperate eloquence) Yer dunno wot them 
books is to me. They took me aht of the sawdid reeyellities 
of the Worterleoo Rowd. They formed maw mawnd: they 
shaowed me sathink awgher than the squalor of a corster's 
lawf 

Redbrook (collaring him). Oh shut up, you fool. Get 
out. Hold your ton 

Drinkwater (frantically breaking from him). Lidy, lidy: 
sy a word for me. Ev a feelin awt. (His tears choice him: 
he clasps his hands in dumb entreaty^ 

Lady Cicely (touched). Don't burn his books. Captain. 
Let me give them back to him. 

Kearney. The books will be handed over to the lady. 

Drinkwater (in a small voice). Thenkyer, lidy. (He 
retires among his comrades, snivelling suhduedly.) 

Redbrook (aside to him as he passes). You silly ass, you. 
(Drinkwater sniffs and does not reply.) 

Kearney. I suppose you and your men accept this lady's 
account of what passed, Captain Brassbound. 

Brassbound (gloomily). Yes. It is true — as far as it goes. 

Kearney (impatiently) . Do you wawnt it to go any further ? 

MLa-rzo. She leave out something. Arab shoot me. She 
nurse me. She cure me. 



78 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Kearney. And who are you, pray ? 

Marzo (seized with a sanctimonious desire to demonstrate 
his higher nature). Only dam thief . Dam Har. Dam rascal. 
She no lady. 

Johnson {revolted by the seeming insult to the English 
peerage from a low Italian) . What .'* What's that you say ? 

Marzo. No lady nurse dam rascal. Only saint. She 
saint. She get me to heaven — get us all to heaven. We do 
what we like now. 

Lady Cicely. Indeed you will do nothing of the sort, 
Marzo, unless you like to behave yourself very nicely indeed. 
What hour did you say we were to lunch at, Captain Kearney ? 

Kearney. You recall me to my dooty. Lady Waynfleet. 
My barge will be ready to take off you and Sir Howard to the 
Santiago at one o'clawk. (He rises.) Captain Brassbound: 
this innquery has elicited no reason why I should detain you or 
your men. I advise you to ahct as escort in future to heathens 
exclusively. Mr. Rahnkin : I thahnk you in the name of the 
United States for the hospitahlity you have extended to us to- 
day; and I invite you to accompany me bahck to my ship 
with a view to lunch at half -past one. Gentlemen: we will 
wait on the governor of the gaol on our way to the harbor. 
(He goes out, following his officers, and followed by the blue- 
jackets and the petty officer.) 

Sir Howard (to Lady Cicely). Cicely: in the course of 
my professional career I have met with unscrupulous wit- 
nesses, and, I am sorry to say, unscrupulous counsel also. 
But the combination of unscrupulous witness and unscrupu- 
lous counsel I have met to-day has taken away my breath. 
You have made me your accomplice in defeating justice. 

Lady Cicely. Yes: aren't you glad it's been defeated for 
once? (She takes his arm to go out with him.) Captain 
Brassbound: I will come back to say goodbye before I go. 
(He nods gloomily. She goes out with Sir Howard, following 
the Captain and his staff.) 

Rankin (running to Brassbound and taking both his hands). 
I'm right glad ye're cleared. I'll come back and have a crack 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 79 

with ye when yon lunch is ovcFo God bless ye. (He goes 

out quickly.) 

Brassbound and his meriy left by themselves in the rooniy 
free and unobserved, go straight ovt of their senses. They 
laugh; they dance; they embrace one another; they set to partners 
and waltz clumsily; they shake hands repeatedly and maudlinly. 
Three only retain some sort of self-possession. Marzo, proud 
of having successfully thrust himself into a leading part in the 
recent proceedings and made a dramatic speech, inflates his 
chest, curls his scanty moustache, and throws himself into a 
swaggering pose, chin up and right foot forward, despising the 
emotional English barbarians around him. Brassbound's 
eyes and the working of his month shew that he is infected with 
the general excitement; but he bridles himself savagely. Red- 
brook, trained to affect indifference, grins cynically; winks at 
Brassbound; and finally relieves himself by assuming the 
character of a circus ringmaster, flourishing an imaginary 
ivhip and egging on the rest to wilder exertions. A climax is 
reached when Drinkivater, let loose without a stain on his 
character for the second time, is rapt by belief in his star into 
an ecstasy in which, scorning all partnership, he becomes as it 
were a whirling dervish, and executes so miraculous a clog 
dance that the others gradually cease their slower antics to stare 
at him. 

Brassbound (tearing off his hat and striding forward as 
Drinkwater collapses, exhausted, and is picked up by Red- 
brook). Now to get rid of this respectable clobber and feel 
like a man again. Stand by, all hands, to jump on the cap- 
tain's tall hat. (He puts the hat down and prepares to jump 
on it. The effect is startling, and takes him completely aback. 
His followers, far from appreciating his iconoclasm, are 
shocked into scandalized sobriety, except Redbrook, who is in- 
tensely tickled by their prudery!) 

Drinkwater Naow, look eah, kepn: that ynt rawt. 
Dror a lawn somewhere. 

Johnson. I say nothin agen a bit of fun, Capn; but let's 
be gentlemen. 



80 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Redbrook. I suggest to you, Brassbound, that the clobber 
belongs to Lady Sis. Ain't you going to give it back to her? 

Brassbound {picking up the hat and brushing the dud off 
it anxiously). That's true. I'm a fool. All the same, she 
shall not see me again like this. {He pulls off the coat and 
waistcoat together.) Does any man here know how to fold 
up this sort of thing properly? 

Redbrook. Allow me, governor. {He takes the coat and 
waistcoat to the table, and folds them up.) 

Brassbound {loosening his collar and the front of his shirt). 
Brandyfaced Jack: you're looking at these studs. I know 
what's in your mind. 

Drinkwater {indignantly). Naow yer down't: nort a bit 
on it. Wot's in maw mawnd is secrifawce, seolf-secrifawce. 

Brassbound. If one brass pin of that lady's property is 
missing, I'll hang you with my own hands at the gaff of 
the Thanksgiving — and would, if she were lying under the 
guns of all the fleets in Europe. {He pidls off the shirt and 
stands in his blue jersey., with his hair ruffled. He passes his 
hand through it and exclaims) Now I am half a man, at 
any rate. 

Redbrook. A horrible combination, governor: church- 
warden from the waist down, and the rest pirate. Lady Sis 
won't speak to you in it. 

Brassbound. I'll change altogether. {He leaves the room 
to get his own trousers) 

Redbrook {softly). Look here, Johnson, and gents gen- 
erally. {They gather about him.) Spose she takes him back 
to England! 

Marzo {trying to repeat his success). Im! Im only dam 
pirate. She saint, I tell you — no take any man nowhere. 

Johnson {severely). Don't you be a ignorant and immoral 
foreigner. {The rebuke is well received; and Marzo is hurtled 
into the background and extinguished) She won't take him 
for harm; but she might take him for good. And then where 
should we be ? 

Drinkwater. Brarsbahnd ynt the ownly kepn in the 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 81 

world. Wot mikes a kepn is brines an knollidge o lawf. It 
ynt thet ther's naow sitch pusson : it's thet you dunno where 
to look fr im, (The implication that he is such a person is so 
intolerable that they receive it with a prolonged burst of booing.) 

Brassbound {returning in his own clothes, getting into his 
jacket as he comes). Stand by, all. (They start asunder 
guiltily, and wait for orders.) Redbrook: you pack that clob- 
ber in the lady's portmanteau, and put it aboard the yacht 
for her. Johnson: you take all hands aboard the Thanks- 
giving; look through the stores: weigh anchor; and make all 
ready for sea. Then send Jack to wait for me at the slip 
with a boat; and give me a gunfire for a signal. Lose no 
time. 

Johnson. Ay, ay, sir. All aboard, mates. 

All. Ay, ay. {They rush out tumultv^u^ly.) 

When they are gone, Brassbound sits down at the end of 
the table, with his elbows on it and his head on his fists, gloomily 
thinking. Then he takes from the breast pocket of his jacket 
a leather case, from which he extracts a scrappy packet of 
dirty letters and newspaper cuttings. These he throws on the 
table. Next comes a photograph in a cheap frame. He 
throws it down untenderly beside the papers; then folds his 
arms, and is looking at it with grim distaste when Lady Cicely 
enters. His back is towards her; and he does not hear her. 
Perceiving this, she shuts the door loudly enough to attract his 
attention. He starts up. 

Lady Cicely {coming to the opposite end of the table). So 
you've taken off all my beautiful clothes! 

Brassbound. Your brother's, you mean. A man should 
wear his own clothes; and a man should tell his own lies. 
I'm sorry you had to tell mine for me to-day. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, women spend half their lives telling 
little lies for men, and sometimes big ones. We're used to 
it. But mind! I don't admit that I told any to-day. 

Brassbound. How did you square my uncle ? 

Lady Cicely. I don't understand the expression. 

Brassbound. I mean 



82 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Lady Cicely. I'm afraid we haven't time to go into what 
you mean before lunch. I want to speak to you about your 
future. May I? 

Brassbound (darkening a litiUy but ■politely). Sit down. 
{She sits down. So does he.) 

Lady Cicely. What are your plans ? 

Brassbound. I have no plans. You will hear a gun fired 
in the harbor presently. That will mean that the Thanks- 
giving's anchor's weighed and that she is waiting for her 
captain to put out to sea. And her captain doesn't know 
now whether to turn her head north or south. 

Lady Cicely. Why not north for England? 

Brassbound. Why not south for the Pole? 

Lady Cicely. But you must do something with yourself. 

Brassbound {settling himself with his fists and elbows 
weightily on the table and looking straight and potverfully at 
her). Look you: when you and I first met, I was a man with 
a purpose. I stood alone : I saddled no friend, w oman or man, 
with that purpose, because it was against law, against religion, 
against my own credit and safety. But I believed in it; and 
I stood alone for it, as a man should stand for his belief, against 
law and religion as much as against wickedness and selfishness. 
Whatever I may be, I am none of your fairweather sailors 
that'll do nothing for their creed but go to Heaven for it. I 
was ready to go to hell for mine. Perhaps you don't under- 
stand that. 

Lady Cicely. Oh bless you, yes. It's so very like a cer- 
tain sort of man. 

Brassbound. I daresay; but I've not met many of that 
sort. Anyhow, that w^as what I was like. I don't say I was 
happy in it; but I wasn't unhappy, because I wasn't drifting. 
I was steering a course and had work in hand. Give a man 
health and a course to steer; and he'll never stop to trpuble 
about whether he's happy or not. 

Lady Cicely. Sometimes he won't even stop to trouble 
about whether other people are happy or not. 

Brassbound. I don't deny that: nothing makes a man so 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 83 

^elfish as work. But I was not self-seeking: it seemed to me 
that i had put justice above self. I tell you life meant some- 
thing to me then. Do you see that dirty little bundle of 
scraps of paper? 

Lady Cicely. What are they? 

Brassbound. Accounts cut out of newspapers. Speeches 
made by my uncle at charitable dinners, or sentencing men 
to death — pious, highminded speeches by a man who was 
to me a thief and a murderer! To my mind they were more 
weighty, more momentous, better revelations of the wicked- 
ness of law and respectability than the book of the prophet 
Amos. What are they now? {He quietly tears the news- 
paper cuttings into little fragments and throivs them away^ 
looking fixedly at her meanivhile.) 

Lady Cicely. Well, that's a comfort, at all events. 

Brassbound. Yes; but it's a part of my life gone: your 
doing, remember. W^hat have I left? See here! {He takes 
up the letters) the letters my uncle wrote to my mother, with 
her comments on their cold drawn insolence, their treachery 
and cruelty. And the piteous letters she wrote to him later on, 
returned unopened. Must they go too? 

Lady Cicely (uneasily). I can't ask you to destroy your 
mother's letters. 

Br.vssbound. Why not, now that you have taken the 
meaning out of them? {He tears them.) Is that a comfort 
too? 

Lady Cicely. It's a little sad; but perhaps it is best so. 

Brassbound. That leaves one relic: her portrait. {He 
plucks the photograph out of its cheap case.) 

Lady Cicely {with vivid curiosity). Oh, let me see. {He 
hands it to her. Before she can control herself, her expres- 
sion changes to one of unmistakable disappointment and re- 
pidsion.) 

Brassbound {with a single sardonic cachinnation) . Ha! 
You expected something better than that. Well, you're right. 
Her face does not look well opposite yours. 

Lady Cicely {distressed). I said nothing. 



84 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

Brassbound. What could you say? {He takes hack the 
'portrait: she relinquishes it without a tvord. He looks at it; 
shakes his head; and takes it quietly between his finger and 
thumb to tear it.) 

Lady Cicely (staying his hand). Oh, not your mother's 
picture! 

Brassbound. If that were your picture, would you like 
your son to keep it for younger and better women to see? 

Lady Cicely (releasing his hand). Oh, you are dreadful! 
Tear it, tear it. (She covers her eyes Jor a moment to shut 
out the sight.) 

Brassbound (tearing it quietly). You killed her for me 
that day in the castle; and I am better without her. (He 
throws away the fragments.) Now everything is gone. You 
have taken the old meaning out of my life; but you have put 
no new meaning into it. I can see that you have some clue 
to the world that makes all its difficulties easy for you; but 
I'm not clever enough to seize it. You've lamed me by shew- 
ing me that I take life the wrong way when I'm left to 
myself. 

Lady Cicely. Oh no. Why do you say that? 

Brassbound. What else can I say? See what I've done! 
My uncle is no worse a man than myself — better, most likely; 
for he has a better head and a higher place. Well, I took him 
for a villain out of a storybook. My mother would have 
opened anybody else's eyes: she shut mine. I'm a stupider 
man than Brandyfaced Jack even; for he got his romantic 
nonsense out of his penny numbers and such like trash; but I 
got just the same nonsense out of life and experience. (Shak- 
ing his head) It was Aqilgar — v u 1 g a r . I see that now; 
for you've opened my eyes to the past; but what good 
is that for the future? What am I to do? Where am I 
to go? 

Lady Cicely. It's quite simple. Do whatever you like. 
That's what I always do. 

Brassbound. That answer is no good to me. What I 
like is to have something to do; and I have nothing. You 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 85 

might as well talk like the missionary and tell me to do my 
duty. 

Lady Cicely {quickly). Oh no thank you. I've had quite 
enough of your duty, and Howard's duty. Where would 
you both be now if I'd let you do it ? 

Brassbound. We'd have been somewhere, at all events. 
It seems to me that now I am nowhere. 

Lady Cicely. But aren't you coming back to England 
with us? 

Brassbound. What for? 

Lady Cicely. Why, to make the most of your opportunities. 

Brassbound. What opportunities? 

Lady Cicely. Don't you understand that when you are 
the nephew of a great bigwig, and have influential connexions, 
and good friends among them, lots of things can be done for 
you that are never done for ordinary ship captains? 

Brassbound. Ah; but I'm not an aristocrat, you see. 
And like most poor men, I'm proud. I don't like being 
patronized. 

Lady Cicely. What is the use of saying that? In my 
world, which is now your world — o u r world — getting 
patronage is the whole art of life. A man can't have a career j 
without it. 

Brassbound. In my world a man can navigate a ship 
and get his living by it. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, I see you're one of the Idealists — 
the Impossibilists ! We have them, too, occasionally, in our 
world. There's only one thing to be done with them. 

Brassbound. What's that? 

Lady Cicely. Marry them straight off to some girl with 
enough money for them, and plenty of sentiment. That's 
their fate. 

Brassbound. You've spoiled even that chance for me. 
Do you think I could look at any ordinary woman after you ? 
You seem to be able to make me do pretty well what you like; 
but you can't make me marry anybody but yourself. 

Lady Cicely. Do you know. Captain Paquito, that I've 



86 Captain Brassbound's Conversion ActtIII 

married no less than seventeen men {Brassbound stares) to 
other women. And they all opened the subject by saying 
that they would never marry anybody but me. 

Brassbound. Then I shall be the first man you ever 
found to stand to his word. 

Lady Cicely {part pleased, part amusedy part sympathetic). 
Do you really want a wife ? 

Brassbound. I want a commander. Don't undervalue 
me: I am a good man when I have a good leader. I have 
courage: I have determination: I'm not a drinker: I can 
command a schooner and a shore party if I can't command 
a ship or an army. When work is put upon me, I turn neither 
to save my life nor to fill my pocket. Gordon trusted me; 
and he never regretted it. If you trust me, you shan't regret 
it. All the same, there's something wanting in me: I sup- 
pose I'm stupid. 

Lady Cicely. Oh, you're not stupid. 

Brassbound. Yes I am. Since you saw me for the first 
time in that garden, you've heard me say nothing clever. 
And I've heard you say nothing that didn't make me laugh, 
or make me feel friendly, as well as telling me what to think 
and what to do. That's what I mean by real cleverness. 
Well, I haven't got it. I can give an order when I know what 
order to give. I can make men obey it, willing or unwilling. 
But I'm stupid, I tell you: stupid. When there's no Gordon 
to command me, I can't think of what to do. Left to my- 
self, I've become half a brigand. I can kick that little gutter- 
scrub Drinkwater* but I find myself doing what he puts into 
my head because I can't think of anything else. When you 
came, I took your orders as naturally as I took Gordon's, 
though I little thought my next commander would be a woman. 
I want to take service under you. And there's no way in 
which that can be done except marrying you. Will you let me 
doit? 

Lady Cicely. I'm afraid you don't quite know how odd 
a match it would be for me according to the ideas of English 
society. 



Act III Captain Brassbound's Conversion 87 

Brassbound. I care nothing about English society: let it 
mind its own business. 

Lady Cicely {rising, a little alarmed). Captain Paquito: 
I am not in love with you. 

Brassbound {abo rising, with his gaze still steadfastly on 
her). I didn't suppose you were : the commander is not usually 
in love with his subordinate. 

Lady Cicely. Nor the subordinate with the commander. 

Brassbound {assenting firmly). Nor the subordinate with 
the commander. 

Lady Cicely {learning for the first time in her life what 
terror is, as she finds that he is unconsciously mesmerizing her). 
Oh, you are dangerous! 

Brassbound. Come: are you in love with anybody else? 
That's the question. 

Lady Cicely {shaking her head) . I have never been in love 
with any real person; and I never shall. How could I manage 
people if I had that mad little bit of self left in me ? That's 
my secret. 

Brassbound. Then throw away the last bit of self. 
Marry me. 

Lady Cicely {vainly struggling to recall her wandering 
will). Must I? 

Brassbound. There is no must. You can. I ask you 
to. My fate depends on it. 

Lady Cicely. It's frightful; for I don't mean to — don't 
wish to. 

Br.issbound. But you will. 

Lady Cicely {quite lost, sloicly stretches out her hand 
to give it to him). I — {Gunfire from the Thanksgiving. 
His eyes dilate. It wakes her from her trance) What is 
that? 

Brassbound. It is farewell. Rescue for you — safety, 
freedom! You were made to be something better than the 
wife of Black Paquito. {He kneels and takes her hands) You 
can do no more for me now: I have blundered somehow on 
the secret of command at last {he kisses her hands): thanks 



88 Captain Brassbound's Conversion Act III 

for that, and for a man's power and purpose restored and 
righted. And farewell, farewell, farewell. 

Lady Cicely (in a strange ecstasy, holding his hands as he 
rises). Oh, farewell. With my heart's deepest feeling, fare- 
well, farewell. 

Brassbound. With my heart's noblest honor and triumph, 
farewell. (He turns and flies.) 

Lady Cicely. How glorious! how glorious! And what 
an escape! 

GUBTAIN. 



NOTES TO CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S 
CONVERSION 

SOURCES OF THE PLAY 

I claim as a notable merit in the authorship of this play 
that I have been intelligent enough to steal its scenery, its 
surroundings, its atmosphere, its geography, its knowledge 
of the east, its fascinating Cadis and Krooboys and Sheikhs 
and mud castles from an excellent book of philosophic travel 
and vivid adventure entitled Mogreb-el-Acksa (Morocco the 
Most Holy) by Cunninghame Graham. My own first hand 
knowledge of Morocco is based on a morning's walk through 
Tangier, and a cursory observation of the coast through a 
binocular from the deck of an Orient steamer, both later in 
date than the writing of the play. 

Cunninghame Graham is the hero of his own book; but 
I have not made him the hero of my play, because so in- 
credible a personage must have destroyed its likelihood — 
such as it is. There are moments when I do not myself 
believe in his existence. And yet he must be real; for I have 
seen him with these eyes; and I am one of the few men living 
who can decipher the curious alphabet in which he writes his 
private letters. The man is on pubhc record too. The 
battle of Trafalgar Square, in which he personally and bodily 
assailed civilization as represented by the concentrated mili- 
tary and constabular forces of the capital of the world, can 
scarcely be forgotten by the more discreet spectators, of 
whom I was one. On that occasion civilization, qualita- 
tively his inferior, was quantitatively so hugely in excess of 
him that it put him in prison, but had not sense enough to 



90 Captain Brassbound's Conversion 

keep him there. Yet his getting out of prison was as nothing 
compared to his getting into the House of Commons. How 
he did it I know not; but the thing certainly happened, some- 
how. That he made pregnant utterances as a legislator may 
be taken as proved by the keen philosophy of the travels 
and tales he has since tossed to us; but the House, strong in 
stupidity, did not understand him until in an inspired mo- 
ment he voiced a universal impulse by bluntly damning its 
hypocrisy. Of all the eloquence of that silly parhament, 
there remains only one single damn. It has survived the 
front bench speeches of the eighties as the word of Cervantes 
survives the oraculations of the Dons and Deys who put him, 
too, in prison. The shocked House demanded that he 
should withdraw his cruel word. *T never withdraw," said 
he; and I promptly stole the potent phrase for the sake of its 
perfect style, and used it as a cockade for the Bulgarian hero 
of Arms and the Man. The theft prospered; and I naturally 
take the first opportunity of repeating it. In what other 
Lepantos besides Trafalgar Square Cunninghame Graham 
has fought, I cannot tell. He is a fascinating mystery to a 
sedentary person like myself. The horse, a dangerous animal 
whom, when I cannot avoid, I propitiate with apples and 
sugar, he bestrides and dominates fearlessly, yet with a true 
republican sense of the rights of the fourlegged fellowcreature 
whose martyrdom, and man's shame therein, he has told most 
powerfully in his Calvary, a tale with an edge that will cut 
the soft cruel hearts and strike fire from the hard kind ones. 
He handles the other lethal weapons as familiarly as the pen : 
medieval sword and modern Mauser are to him as umbrellas 
and kodaks are to me. His tales of adventure have the true 
Cervantes touch of the man who has been there — so refresh- 
ingly different from the scenes imagined by bloody-minded 
clerks who escape from their servitude into literature to tell 
us how men and cities are conceived in the counting house 
and the volunteer corps. He is, I understand, a Spanish 
hidalgo : hence the superbity of his portrait by Lavery (Velas- 
quez being no longer available). He is, I know, a Scotch 



Notes 91 

laird. How he contrives to be authentically the two things 
at the same time is no more intelligible to me than the fact 
that everything that has ever happened to him seems to have 
happened in Paraguay or Texas instead of in Spain or Scot- 
land. He is, I regret to add, an impenitent and unashamed 
dandy: such boots, such a hat, would have dazzled D'Orsay 
himself. With that hat he once saluted me in Regent St. 
when I was walking with my mother. Her interest was in- 
stantly kindled; and the following conversation ensued. 
"Who is that .5^" "Cunninghame Graham.'* "Nonsense! 
Cunninghame Graham is one of your Socialists : that man is 
a gentleman. " This is the punishment of vanity, a fault I have 
myself always avoided, as I find conceit less troublesome and 
much less expensive. Later on somebody told him of Taru- 
dant, a city in Morocco in which no Christian had ever set 
foot. Concluding at once that it must be an exceptionally 
desirable place to live in, he took ship and horse; changed the 
hat for a turban; and made straight for the sacred city, via 
Mogador. How he fared, and how he fell into the hands of 
the Cadi of Kintafi, who rightly held that there was more 
danger to Islam in one Cunninghame Graham than in a 
thousand Christians, may be learnt from his account of it in 
Mogreb-el-Acksa, without which Captain Brassbound's Con- 
version would never have been written. 

I am equally guiltless of any exercise of invention concern- 
ing the story of the West Indian estate which so very nearly 
serves as a peg to hang Captain Brassbound. To Mr. 
Frederick Jackson of Hindhead, who, against all his principles, 
encourages and abets me in my career as a dramatist, I owe 
my knowledge of those main facts of the case which became 
public through an attempt to make the House of Commons 
act on them. This being so, I must add that the character 
of Captain Brassbound's mother, like the recovery of the estate 
by the next heir, is an interpolation of my own. It is not, 
however, an invention. One of the evils of the pretence that 
our institutions represent abstract principles of justice instead 
of being mere social scaffolding is that persons of a certain 



92 Captain Brassbound's Conversion 

temperament take the pretence seriously, and when the law 
is on the side of injustice, will not accept the situation, and 
are driven mad by their vain struggle against it. Dickens has 
drawn the type in his Man from Shropshire in Bleak House. 
Most public men and all lawyers have been appealed to by 
victims of this sense of injustice — the most unheipable of 
afflictions in a society like ours. 



ENGLISH AND AMERICAN DIALECTS 

The fact that English is spelt conventionally and not pho- 
netically makes the art of recording speech almost impossible. 
What is more, it places the modern dramatist, who writes for 
America as well as England, in a most trying position. Take 
for example my American captain and my English lady. 
I have spelt the word conduce, as uttered by the American 
captain, as cawndooce, to suggest (very roughly) the Ameri- 
can pronunciation to English readers. Then why not spell 
the same word, when uttered by Lady Cicely, as kerndewce, 
to suggest the English pronunciation to American readers? 
To this I have absolutely no defence: I can only plead that 
an author who lives in England necessarily loses his conscious- 
ness of the peculiarities of English speech, and sharpens his 
consciousness of the points in which American speech differs 
from it; so that it is more convenient to leave English peculiar- 
ities to be recorded by American authors. I must, however, 
most vehemently disclaim any intention of suggesting that 
English pronunciation is authoritative and correct. My own 
tongue is neither American English nor English English, but 
Irish English; so I am as nearly impartial in the matter as it 
is in human nature to be. Besides, there is no standard Eng- 
lish pronunciation any more than there is an American one: 
in England every county has its catchwords, just as no doubt 
every' state in the Union has. I cannot believe that the 
pioneer American, for example, can spare time to learn that 
last refinement of modern speech, the exquisite diphthong, 



Notes 93 

a farfetched combination of the French eu and the English 
e, with which a New Yorker pronounces such words as world, 
bird &c. I have spent months without success in trying to 
achieve ghbness with it. 

To FeHx Drinkwater also I owe some apology for imply- 
ing that all his vowel pronunciations are unfashionable. 
They are very far from being so. As far as my social ex- 
perience goes (and I have kept very mixed company) there 
is no class in English society in which a good deal of Drink- 
water pronunciation does not pass unchallenged save by the 
expert phonetician. This is no mere rash and ignorant jibe 
of my own at the expense of my English neighbors. Aca- 
demic authority in the matter of English speech is represented 
at present by Mr. Henry Sweet, of the University of Oxford, 
whose Elementarhiich des gesprochenen Englisch, translated 
into his native language for the use of British islanders as a 
Primer of Spoken English, is the most accessible standard 
work on the subject. In such words as plum, come, humbug, 
up, gun, etc., Mr. Sweet's evidence is conclusive. Ladies 
and gentlemen in Southern England prorounce them as plam, 
kam, hambag, ap, gan, etc., exactly as Felix Drinkwater 
does. I could not claim Mr. Sweet's autiority if I dared to 
whisper that such coster English as the rather pretty dahn 
tahn for down town, or the decidedly ugly cowcow for cocoa 
is current in very polite circles. The entire nation, costers and 
all, would undoubtedly repudiate any such pronunciation as 
vulgar. All the same, if I were to attempt to represent cur- 
rent "smart" cockney speech as I have attempted to represent 
Drinkwater's, without the niceties of Mr. Sweet's Romic alpha- 
bets, I am afraid I should often have to write dahn tahn and 
cowcow as being at least nearer to the actual sound than down 
town and cocoa. And this would give such offence that I 
should have to leave the country; for nothing annoys a native 
speaker of English more than a faithful setting down in 
phonetic spelling of the sounds he utters. He imagines that 
a departure from conventional spelling indicates a departure 
from the correct standard English of good society. Alas! 



94 Captain Brassbound's Conversion 

this correct standard English of good society is unknown to 
phoneticians. It is only one of the many figments that be- 
wilder our poor snobbish brains. No such thing exists; but 
what does that matter to people trained from infancy to 
make a point of honor of belief in abstractions and incredi- 
bilities ? And so I am compelled to hide Lady Cicely's speech 
under the veil of conventional orthography. 

I need not shield Drinkwater, because he will never read 
my book. So I have taken the liberty of making a special 
example of him, as far as that can be done without a phonetic 
alphabet, for the benefit of the mass of readers outside 
London who still form their notions of cockney dialect on 
Sam Weller. When I came to London in 1876, the Sam 
Weller dialect had passed away so completely that I should 
have given it up as a literary fiction if I had not discovered 
it surviving in a Middlesex village, and heard of it from an 
Essex one. Some time in the eighties the late Andrew Tuer 
called attention in the Pall Mall Gazette to several peculiar- 
ities of modern cockney, and to the obsolescence of the Dick- 
ens dialect that was still being copied from book to book by 
authors who never dreamt of using their ears, much less of 
training them to listen. Then came Mr. Anstey's cockney 
dialogues in Punch, a great advance, and Mr. Chevalier's 
coster song§ and patter. The Tompkins verses contributed 
by Mr. Barry Pain to the London Daily Chronicle have also 
done something to bring the literary convention for cockney 
English up to date. But Tompkins sometimes perpetrates 
horrible solecisms. He will pronounce face as fice, accurately 
enough; but he will rhyme it quite impossibly to nice, which 
Tompkins would pronounce as nawce : for example Mawl Enn 
Rowd for Mile End Road. This aw for i, which I have 
made Drinkwater use, is the latest stage of the old diph- 
thongal oi, which Mr. Chevalier still uses. Irish, Scotch and 
north country readers must remember that Drinkwater's rs 
are absolutely unpronounced when they follow a vowel, 
though they modify the vowel very considerably. Thus, 
luggage is pronounced by him as laggige, but turn is not pro- 



Notes 95 

nounced as tarn, but as teun with the eu sounded as in French. 
The London r seems thoroughly understood in America, 
with the result, however, that the use of the r by Artemus 
Ward and other American dialect writers causes Irish people 
to misread them grotesquely. I once saw the pronunciation 
of malheureux represented in a cockney handbook by 
mal-err-err : not at all a bad makeshift to instruct a Londoner, 
but out of the question elsewhere in the British Isles. In 
America, representations of English speech dwell too derisively 
on the dropped or interpolated h. American writers have 
apparently not noticed the fact that the south English h is not 
the same as the never-dropped Irish and American h, and 
that to ridicule an Enghshman for dropping it is as absurd as 
to ridicule the whole French and Italian nation for doing the 
same. The American h, helped out by a general agreement 
to pronounce wh as hw, is tempestuously audible, and can- 
not be dropped without being immediately missed. The 
London h is so comparatively quiet at all times, and so com- 
pletely inaudible in wh, that it probably fell out of use simply 
by escaping the ears of children learning to speak. However 
that may be, it is kept alive only by the literate classes who 
are reminded constantly of its existence by seeing it on paper. 
Roughly speaking, I should say that in England he who 
bothers about his hs is a fool, and he who ridicules a dropped 
h a snob. As to the interpolated h, my experience as a Lon- 
don vestryman has convinced me that it is often effective as a 
means of emphasis, and that the London language would be 
poorer without it. The objection to it is no more respectable 
than the objection of a street boy to a black man or to a lady 
in knickerbockers. 

I have made only the most perfunctory attempt to repre- 
sent the dialect of the missionary. There is no literary nota- 
tion for the grave music of good Scotch. 

Blackdot^-n. 
August 1900 

THE END 



^OV IS 'Ji*^ 



LeFe'14 



CAPTAIN 

BRASSBOUND'S 

CONVERSION 

A PLAY OF ADVENTURE 
By 

BERNARD SHAW 




NEW YORK 

BRENTANOS 

1913 

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MATERNITY 

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THE THREE DAUGHTERS OF 

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WITH PREFACE BY BERNARD SHAW 
Transiaied into English 

By Mrs. BERNARD SHAW. ST. JOHN HANKIN 
and JOHN POLLOCK 

f2mo. Cloth, price $1.50 net 

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THE PHILANDERER 
MRS. WARREN'S PROFESSION 
ARMS AND THE MAN 
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THE DEVIL'S DISCIPLE 
CJESAR AND CLEOPATRA 
CAPTAIN BRASSBOUND'S CONVERSION' 
MAN AND SUPERMAN ! 

JOHN BULL'S OTHER ISLAND | 

MAJOR BARBARA \ 

THE MAN OF DESTINY. AND HOW HE | 
LIED TO HER HUSBAND 1 

THE DOCTOR'S DILEMMA ' 

GETTING MARRIED . 

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